Need help with sorc dps

[Taskcommnda]

Hey guys, so i'm really look to increase my dps as i feel that i can do alot better with my current gear but i'm not sure on where i'm going wrong exactly. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Acronym's

TB - Thundering Blast

RE - Recklessness

LS - Lightning Strike

AF - Affliction

Crush - Crushing Darkness

FL - Force Lightning

CL - Chain Lightning

 

Opener is this:

Crush + AF + Adrenal / PS / TB + LS + RE / FL (proc) + CL (proc) + LS + LS + LS+ TB + LS + LS + Crush + LS + LS + AF + TB

 

TOR-Parse link:

http://www.torparse.com/a/600260/1/0/Overview

 

Link to AskMrRobot profile:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/65b28e57-fe38-4b41-a65c-3c12adbade4f

[Capote]

Have you tried the combat dummy? It's normal to exist a good difference in dps, but if it's too big perhaps it's an accuracy problem? How much accuracy do you have in total? You have a lot more miss chance than me in my parses.

 

Also, you don't use shock at all? I know some people indicate not to use it, but in my parses it represents almost 13% of the damage (my parse for reference: http://www.torparse.com/a/601447/1/0/Damage+Dealt).

 

Third thing is TB was only with 81% of critical, should be in 100% because of affliction, try not to miss that ever, it's a big cast!

 

I hope this helps, but there are for sure ppl better than me in the class over here!

Edited February 24, 2014 by Capote

[Taskcommnda]

thanks for the reply. my total force accuracy in gear is 107.64% i assumed the 3% from talents would cover the rest but obviously not.

 

i don't use shock in my general dps rotation, because per GCD LS does more average damage than one shock would and if i use shock instead of LS, then i miss a chance on Lightning Storm and Forked Lightning proc.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/601479/6/0/Damage+Dealt

new parse with better results. 100% crit TB 0 resists this time. Though still only averaging 2400.

[Eksenia]

Any % from talents are included on character sheet afaik.

[Capote]

You need something around 109~110% accuracy iirc. This might be your problem!

 

Just as an update, I tried to parse without shock and got almost 200 less DPS (I just need more training problably).

 

It seems that when you "cast shock on the last second of the LS cast" it goes "almost without the GCD", which gives some good burst if the second shock procs. Not to mention it is a good option when the chain proc is on CD. Have you tried to parse with shock and it's proc?

 

Last thing, have you tried the operation dummy in your ship? Sometimes the fleet one can parse less because it's more laggy in there.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Capote

[Cidgarrillo]

Your rotantion is fine but you failed 2 thundering blast. You did them when affliction's effect ended making your thundering blast being not-crit and also one of your thundering blasts didnt hit at all cause your low accuracy.

 

Your crit rating is too high in relation with your damage. At your damage level i would suggest 0% crit and more accuracy and less alacrity. Probably the thundering blast non-crit failures were caused by accuracy problems with aflicction (i didnt check your full log to be honest).

You have a lot of alacrity but you are not having more than 40 apm (in fact, you are doing less than 35 apms). If you are having problems mastering your rotation i would suggest having 0% alacrity until you master it good enough to optimice your apm.

 

Try to never wait to an abilite to become avaible, use lighting strike even if thundering blast or crushing darkness have less than half second of cooldown.

 

Sorry for my bad english and fast typing i dont have a lot of time now, ill try to post tomorrow with more info.

[WooduckAUS]

thanks for the reply. my total force accuracy in gear is 107.64% i assumed the 3% from talents would cover the rest but obviously not.

 

i don't use shock in my general dps rotation, because per GCD LS does more average damage than one shock would and if i use shock instead of LS, then i miss a chance on Lightning Storm and Forked Lightning proc.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/601479/6/0/Damage+Dealt

new parse with better results. 100% crit TB 0 resists this time. Though still only averaging 2400.

 

Most of this was answered by the previous poster but the main thing i noticed in the revised parse was your APM. You were sitting ~36 apm. Top parsers will sit ~42. THIS alone will be enough to boost your dps around 200-300, at least!!

 

If you don't have a dummy on your ship, buy it quickly. Lag on fleet is horrible. If you do have a dummy on your ship, then you need to practice your rotation better. You should ALWAYS have an ability "queued" up before your previous ability finishes cast. Practise practise practise. The only tricky switch with pre-queued abilities is with your force lightning, that one will cancel the channel if you hit the next ability too early.

 

Other than that, i had a quick look at your gear, force acc HAS to be ~110%. 440 rating iirc. 0-2 pieces of alacrity are acceptable and comes down to personal preference. Crit anywhere from 0-200 depending on preference. I run ~180 while raiding, feels more consistent. All of this is just nit-picking and doesn't really matter until you're going for BiS.

 

If you get your apm above 42 with your 2 pieces of alacrity, i think the dps you'll get will be around what your gear level will allow. I didn't go through your parse because i think the bulk of the problem is your APM, after you fixed your accuracy and hitting TB without affliction.

 

I hope this helps. DPS on Sage/Sorc is balls of fun!!

Edited February 24, 2014 by WooduckAUS

[Taskcommnda]

Yeah i switched a few enhancements around and got my accuracy to 110, in the revised parse i had 0 misses/resists.

Boosting my apm, no idea if its just a latency issue on my part or what because the rotation is fine and im never waitingfor an ability to come off cd, i've always got an attack queued up next as well. I was noticing some slight latency issues when i was parsing so ill try fix that and upload a new parse later.

 

Also, testing was done on my ship ops test dummy.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Taskcommnda

[Taskcommnda]

sorry for the late reply, i've changed a few things up.

 

latest parse: http://www.torparse.com/a/605652/2/0/Damage+Dealt

i have the 4 set bonus for dps now

crit chance is down to 23% (can only go lower by changing one implant and 1 mod)

alacrity @ 153

 

although even with these changes its 2500 dps at about 37 apm, i have no idea how i can boost that higher, i always have an ability queued and there's never a moment (tmk) that i'm not casting or doing damage. my average latency is about 220-250ms

[Cidgarrillo]

crit chance is down to 23% (can only go lower by changing one implant and 1 mod)

alacrity @ 153

I still feel like you are stacking too much alacrity, I prefer surge since the curve of surge-rating is pleasantly good under 73%.

 

 

 

2500 dps at about 37 apm, 220-250ms

 

Here we go.

First of all you did 2 thundering blasts without affliction and that could increase your dps a few important points.

To continue with, you are still stacking alacrity when you are not doing more than 40 apms, and thats useless.

And in other matters, looking at your parse and to another one,for example the jurbeke's parse. You can see that in the first 4 seconds you are doing it perfect but then you just did 3 actions before the second thundering blast. The jurbeke parse is theoretically wrong but still he does more than 5 lighting strikes ALWAYS between thundering blasts and even he had time to do a chain lighting and a force lighting (The math say's that delaying a thundering blast or crushing darkness is wrong, but he did a quite great job so I'm not self confident enough to say its wrong)

 

The difference in the opener rotation is measurable:

jurbeke:

1crush

1AF

1TB

6LS

1CL

Yours

1crush

1Af

1TB

2LS

1CL

 

So I ignored the beggining of your parse (bad opener) and the end (you are not using hp debuff on dummy).

And the result is an average APM of 37.2.

I Also checked your other good parse and clipped the end again showing an APM of 38.9. I know is hard and probably your ping isn't helping but with that APM you should be doing slightly better numbers.

 

You don't really need to do numbers over 3k to beat the enrage time on hm df or (almost all) hm df (but is still "desirable"). So be patient, sooner or later you will get the perfect rotation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And another thing, do you have tried madness? most people find it a lot of easier.

 

EDIT: I forgot to say something: Are you using armour debuff in the dummy? Probably that could help you. Only the 24% of your damage ignores armour.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Cidgarrillo

[Taskcommnda]

in regards to too much alacity, at the moment i have two pieces of gear that increase alacrity which i currently don't have anything to replace them with. i do have enough comms to buy an implant from the vendor but its crit and accuracy, which i don't want either of them.

also on the beginning of the parse, i use my adrenal and polarity shift after the first TB and before LS and i dont think the combat log analysis shows this, so that might be why im doing what seems to be less actions.

 

the issue with the thundering blasts not critting is just a matter of me misjudging the time left on afflction before it runs out, in which case im probably better off going for e.g a lightning strike instead of a non-crit TB.

 

one last thing, no i haven't been parsing with any armor debuff or any sort of thing on my dummy, i wasn't even aware of debuffs to it

 

oh i forgot, yeah i have dabbled in madness a bit but i don't find it as enjoyable as lightning. Our guild is currently in HM DF and we have cleared up to corrupter zero, but i just feel like i have a lot of wasted potential and that i could do better with my current gear than i should be.

 

thanks for the input as well, i appreciate all the advice

Edited February 28, 2014 by Taskcommnda

[Taskcommnda]

okay best parse yet, i added the armor reduction and health reduction to the dummy (1.5mil, wasn't sure what the difference in the size of health pool meant) http://www.torparse.com/a/605736 2600 dps 39.69 APM and only didnt crit TB once, though i have noticed i can get a bit trigger happy with thundering blast and lose out on an instant chain lightning every now and then.

[WooduckAUS]

okay best parse yet, i added the armor reduction and health reduction to the dummy (1.5mil, wasn't sure what the difference in the size of health pool meant) http://www.torparse.com/a/605736 2600 dps 39.69 APM and only didnt crit TB once, though i have noticed i can get a bit trigger happy with thundering blast and lose out on an instant chain lightning every now and then.

 

1 x affliction = 2 TB

 

This is the easiest way to stop this from happening and easiest way to follow affliction. Cast affliction, very next gcd is used for TB. Usual fillers in between. As soon as TB is back up cast it again. Now your fillers again and then 1 gcd BEFORE TB is off cool down, reapply affliction. Then straight into TB next gcd. Rinse and repeat.

 

There will be a few seconds, before you reapply affliction, that will be affliction free... But that is ok. Reapply the gcd before TB. Trying to keep it up 100% of the time will result in a dps loss and makes it harder than it needs to be. I don't know of any top parsers that do it any other way.

 

As for your apm numbers, you say you always have something precasted...... You don't. Plain and simple. If you did, your apm would be higher. Now that I've said it, let's try and fix it. Something that helped me was extending my "precast" window on my abilities to 1sec. I think default is 0.5 iirc. That way you can click your next ability halfway through the animation of your gcd. Earlier the better that way you can look ahead at your next few moves. If you have bad lag, which it sounds like you do, you may have to compensate by clicking even earlier. Trial and error. Also, mashing buttons as fast as you can, multiple times to activate an ability can delay your next ability. Once you get the hang of it, it should just be 1 click/button push halfway through your current gcd to activate your next ability. Clean and smooth.

 

Still haven't looked at you parse (@ work right now), but someone wrote that you were only hitting a few moves between your next TB? Is your lag giving you dead gcd's? Where you activate an ability, lose a gcd but nothing happens? Have you noticed anything like this? Could explain your apm and dps, if you do always have something q'd?

 

I'll try to look through your parse when I get a chance and see if I can notice anything else.

 

STOP THE PRESSES - FOUND THE PROBLEM

 

just went and opened your parse...... *slaps hand to forehead* Is force lightning the equivalent of TK throw for sages (sorry I bat for the other team)?

 

If so, STOP DOING IT!!

 

You only use it with the proc from affliction. This will explain you apm, your lack of lightning strikes and ultimately your lack of dps.

 

Try that out and let me/us know.

Edited March 1, 2014 by WooduckAUS

[Taskcommnda]

yeah i'm not that dumb, i know the only time i use force lightning is from affliction proc and yes, i do always have something queued up.

 

though "someone wrote that you were only hitting a few moves between your next TB? Is your lag giving you dead gcd's? Where you activate an ability, lose a gcd but nothing happens? Have you noticed anything like this? Could explain your apm and dps, if you do always have something q'd?" that and the mashing buttons thing sounds like what could be the problem. i'll try slow down a bit next time, i do notice sometimes how i can get a bit of lag during casts and sometimes i'll hit the button but it doesn't cast, or the animation will show but it doesnt go on cooldown or do any damage.

[WooduckAUS]

yeah i'm not that dumb, i know the only time i use force lightning is from affliction proc and yes, i do always have something queued up.

 

Sorry man, wasn't trying to be a douche, just trying to help.

 

Seriously though..... i stick with my last comment. You are hitting force lightning on average every 4.5 secs, the cooldown for the affliction proc is every 10 secs. You are using force lightning on cooldown AND with the proc = dps loss. Allowing for the icd on the proc + fitting it into your priority list, you should be using it every 12secs or so. Your parse shows that you are using it WAY too much.

 

Try parsing with ONLY when it procs. That does explain all your issues here, give it a go.

 

I'm just going by the parse you posted last.

http://www.torparse.com/a/605736/2/0/Damage+Dealt

[Alucardess]

Well one thing is try parsing on a 1 mil dummy because the longer the fight, the lower the parse gets on average.

 

And also, only use Recklessness when you have a Chain Lightning Proc or a Force Lightning Proc. Best use is when they double proc, but RNG sucks sometimes.