Watchman: Full Deft 34 vs. config with 2 Potent 34

[Leafy_Bug]

Dear All,

 

 

I have recently started toying with some crit rating on my sentinel. I have run several parses but at this point in time I cannot offer a solid conclusion nor allay some of my fears. Has anyone tried something similar and if yes, do they notice a huge loss in damage when using crit mods? Do they notice an insignificant gap which means that having some crit on a watchman is not as harmful as one may think? I mean at the moment, i have over 22% critical chance on melee versus the 19% i used to have and i see more often high numbers on merciless, twin saber throw and even Masterstrike.

 

 

 

So I ran several parses with full deft 34 and with the above two potent replacing two deft. I have some sporadic results where sometimes with more crit I do more damage and sometimes with zero crit I do more damage. I do not think I will run 50 parses with each setup to get something close to statistically significant. Has anyone run the math since the new 78 gear has been introduced? Do two crit mods make such a difference that I won't be doing serious damage anymore? Does the math still support ZERO crit as BIS for Watchman?

 

 

Regards,

 

E.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Leafy_Bug

[Emperor-Norton]

Gorband saw his best results in 75 Gear with around 139 crit rating, and I run between 120 and 250 (I would probably sit around 150-180 if I was BiS). Also, the amount of Crit % is irrelevant, the question of taking crit is whether it is a better pound for pound substitute for its substitute, Power. What is important to note is that pure Power is more consistent with the Damage it gives than going with Crit, and what makes some Crit with Watchman better is the Quality of Life bonus from Focus Generation more so than it just gives straight up more Damage. Edited October 29, 2013 by Emperor-Norton

[oofalong]

My math still says 0 crit rating for the highest average expected DPS. I recognize higher crit allows for more volatility in parses. Thus, it is not surprising to see a higher single parse with some crit. Prior this retirement Gorband was kind enough to supply a number of parses on MMO Mechanics; I spent some time analyzing - I'll add a link to it later - and was not able to conclude that crit rating improved DPS. Nor was I able to concludes that it hurt DPS. For example, the higher crit rating caused Merciless Slash/Annihilate to crit at a higher than expected rate, but Slash/Vicious Slash to crit at a lower rate. In other words, there were too many variables I the parse for it to be conclusive. Thus, I trust my math which better controls these variables through averages.

[Emperor-Norton]

My math still says 0 crit rating for the highest average expected DPS. I recognize higher crit allows for more volatility in parses. Thus, it is not surprising to see a higher single parse with some crit. Prior this retirement Gorband was kind enough to supply a number of parses on MMO Mechanics; I spent some time analyzing - I'll add a link to it later - and was not able to conclude that crit rating improved DPS. Nor was I able to concludes that it hurt DPS. For example, the higher crit rating caused Merciless Slash/Annihilate to crit at a higher than expected rate, but Slash/Vicious Slash to crit at a lower rate. In other words, there were too many variables I the parse for it to be conclusive. Thus, I trust my math which better controls these variables through averages.

IIRC, your math also doesn't have a way to really analyze how Burning Focus can affect DPS. Either way, the DPS difference between small levels of Crit and full Power are likely to be very minimal.

[oofalong]

IIRC, your math also doesn't have a way to really analyze how Burning Focus can affect DPS. Either way, the DPS difference between small levels of Crit and full Power are likely to be very minimal.

 

My math approximate it although I admitted it was the one area I felt least confident in. My math assumes it is discrete rather than continuous; it was simpler to do.

 

In any event, I do agree that 0-150 crit would result in +/- 0.5% DPS.

[TheCourier-]

Back when patch 2.0 was on the PTS and/or soon after patch 2.0 was released, around 50 crit rating was the amount of crit rating to try to get, but the difference between 50 crit rating and 0 crit rating was extremely slight (emphasis on extremely).

[Ardarell_Solo]

On the Dummy you'll just have more volatility as Oofalong rightly says. Best parses will thus always be the ones with more crit.

 

For progress raiding I'd recommend going for about 100 crit for 2 reasons:

 

- If you're doing numerous attempts on the same boss, you might get that one lucky try that will down the boss - like that one lucky record dummy parse...

 

- Improved Focus generation enables you to use more Blade Storms or if need be even Crippling Throws from a distance on targets that have AoE effects around them that you need to avoid - which happens a lot in the new OPs. (Btw in cases like that I even go for Force Stasis sometimes)

 

As for pure numbers the difference is indeed negligible...

[oofalong]

I will also adjust my crit rating based on the healers. The group heals are ok, but the individual heals are more significant.

[Dawginole]

I'd definitely be throwing some crit on Watchman. Somewhere between 20-25% (I know 25% is pretty much impossible). If you're Combat then if you have more than 0 crit there's a problem. For Focus it really depends how you play, you can gear the same as Combat if you desire (that's my preference). But Watchman, yes, I'd definitely look at some crit.

 

Post up your parser results and let us analyze!

[KeyboardNinja]

I'd definitely be throwing some crit on Watchman. Somewhere between 20-25% (I know 25% is pretty much impossible). If you're Combat then if you have more than 0 crit there's a problem. For Focus it really depends how you play, you can gear the same as Combat if you desire (that's my preference). But Watchman, yes, I'd definitely look at some crit.

 

My Focus spreadsheet says that crit and power are pretty much at parity in 72 gear, and crit gains a slight edge over power (for about 100 or so) in 78s. I haven't done rigorous analysis here, but that's the preliminary results I can get by just reading it off. I know that Ino has a spreadsheet for Watchman which says that 62 crit is optimal in 75 gear (by like, 1 DPS), which probably means that 80-100 is optimal in full 78s, at least according to his spreadsheet. This would imply that Watchman and Focus are BiS in literally identical gear, which is convenient.

 

Combat is definitely still a zero crit machine, since crit has never been even remotely close to viable for the spec (auto-crits ftw).

Edited October 31, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[oofalong]

...I know that Ino has a spreadsheet for Watchman which says that 62 crit is optimal in 75 gear (by like, 1 DPS), which probably means that 80-100 is optimal in full 78s, at least according to his spreadsheet...

 

His spreadsheet also suggests the use of Stasis/Force Choke for Watchman/Annihilation as well as a few other oddities. His conclusion may be approximately accurate, but I questions the underlying logic

[KeyboardNinja]

His spreadsheet also suggests the use of Stasis/Force Choke for Watchman/Annihilation as well as a few other oddities. His conclusion may be approximately accurate, but I questions the underlying logic

 

Yeah, I was really surprised at the Stasis/Choke bit. He throws that into Combat/Carnage as well, which makes me suspect that he is incorrectly approximating proc rates and over-estimating damage per focus.

[Leafy_Bug]

I played extensively with 124 crit rating and I am never going back to full power. Tanks can't hold aggro anymore not even with guard and I did 3225 on Thrasher 8M yesterday. Vanguard tank had to taunt on cooldown to hold aggro, I was on fire!! Truth be told we were gearing him up . Still far from BIS 78, I put the mainhand on my shadow. Thrasher was a dummy i never got targeted, I stood there and butchered it.

 

 

Something to giggle : as my numbers were going up, from 2.9k to 3.1k, I kept saying 'you can do it, more, more, you can do it, more, then I hit 3.2k and I was like, DONT DIE THRASHER, DONT DIE!!!' Poor thing was at 5%. Shouting on TS helps DPS, pro tip right there!!! Our shadow DPS was like 'you have 3.2k? that is nothing, I am barely hitting 2.670, so this is skill, not yours *ROFL* . He was saying, NERF SHADOW DPS hahaha

Edited November 5, 2013 by Leafy_Bug

[oofalong]

I played extensively with 124 crit rating and I am never going back to full power. Tanks can't hold aggro anymore not even with guard and I did 3225 on Thrasher 8M yesterday. Vanguard tank had to taunt on cooldown to hold aggro, I was on fire!! Truth be told we were gearing him up . Still far from BIS 78, I put the mainhand on my shadow. Thrasher was a dummy i never got targeted, I stood there and butchered it.

 

 

Something to giggle : as my numbers were going up, from 2.9k to 3.1k, I kept saying 'you can do it, more, more, you can do it, more, then I hit 3.2k and I was like, DONT DIE THRASHER, DONT DIE!!!' Poor thing was at 5%. Shouting on TS helps DPS, pro tip right there!!! Our shadow DPS was like 'you have 3.2k? that is nothing, I am barely hitting 2.670, so this is skill, not yours *ROFL* . He was saying, NERF SHADOW DPS hahaha

 

Were you tasked with killing any of the adds? If not, I think this fight is exceptionally good for Watchman/Annihilation due to the steady, but relatively modest inbound damage from Stomp and Roar. This seems to allow an extra 2 uses of Berserk in the fight. Plus, you can pretty much just focus on the boss without adjusting your rotation. In other words, this is a pretty ideal fight and I agree it seems to lend itself to a bit of crit rating.

[K_osss]

My Focus spreadsheet says that crit and power are pretty much at parity in 72 gear, and crit gains a slight edge over power (for about 100 or so) in 78s. I haven't done rigorous analysis here, but that's the preliminary results I can get by just reading it off. I know that Ino has a spreadsheet for Watchman which says that 62 crit is optimal in 75 gear (by like, 1 DPS), which probably means that 80-100 is optimal in full 78s, at least according to his spreadsheet. This would imply that Watchman and Focus are BiS in literally identical gear, which is convenient.

 

Combat is definitely still a zero crit machine, since crit has never been even remotely close to viable for the spec (auto-crits ftw).

 

I'm a bit surprised by the your spreadsheet recommending a Focus Sentinel put points into crit. With the 8 second (give or take) Force Sweep autocrit I would assume that power reigns supreme similarly to Combat spec. I totally get some crit for Watchman due to Burning Focus. That only makes sense. Could you enlighten me? I'd be happy to put some gear in that would increase my crit a little if it does some good. Admittedly I almost soley PvP but I like to play some Watchman from time to time and if I can use a similar gear out i will.

[Emperor-Norton]

I'm a bit surprised by the your spreadsheet recommending a Focus Sentinel put points into crit. With the 8 second (give or take) Force Sweep autocrit I would assume that power reigns supreme similarly to Combat spec. I totally get some crit for Watchman due to Burning Focus. That only makes sense. Could you enlighten me? I'd be happy to put some gear in that would increase my crit a little if it does some good. Admittedly I almost soley PvP but I like to play some Watchman from time to time and if I can use a similar gear out i will.

Because Focus has lots of Surge talents for all its Damage. Combat has Blade Rush, but it relies on TST, Master Strike, and Dispatch for a lot of its damage. Focus has Surge bonuses for all its non-Smash abilities, which makes crit better. Also, Sweep only makes up a slightly bigger amount of Focus's Single Target DPS than Blade Storm for Combat.

 

Crit with Watchman also has advantages due to Burning Focus and because Zen only affects about 16% of DoT ticks, so a normal DoT crit gets a 30% damage bonus.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Emperor-Norton

[K_osss]

Yeah that makes sense. I can see how the difference in surge talents incentivizes crit for Focus. That the only difference between the two that affects crit?