All dat crit...

[JourrnoRush]

Another Sage/Sorc Healing gear question now that we are in 3.0

 

What are you guys stacking for the best output? Min/max what do you recommend?

[benovide]

Another Sage/Sorc Healing gear question now that we are in 3.0

 

What are you guys stacking for the best output? Min/max what do you recommend?

 

Willpower-Improves all stats

Alacrity-Speeds cast times, activation times, and cool down times - So far can't find a max for alacrity to start to plateau, it does not seem to have a rate of exponential decay while stacking.

 

Power-Increase damage dealt by regular attacks - So far it starts to decrease effectiveness for stacking once you've achieved 40% greater DPS on your base attacks before crit.

 

Surge-Increases damage dealt per critical hit - So far it seems to max out at around 40%. (totalling your crit damage by 1.5x of base damage)

 

Crit-Increases chances of a critical hit - It maxes around 30%, granting a total of 30% chance of a critical hit each move you make once added to the already 25% chance to crit by default without item modifications.

 

Each level the exact number (30-2080) will very on min/max, but when you gear your toon level to level just take the number of pieces of gear and mods. and divide accordingly. With alacrity being the only one you don't care about as far as how much ot increase it by.

 

However, in PVP, Expertise must be as high as possible, like alacrity, expertise does not have a plateau. but expertise is useless in PVE

Edited December 6, 2014 by benovide

[benovide]

without confusing the crap out of you further.

Each moddable piece of armor has its own mods.

 

There are 7 armor mods

9 Mods

7 Enhancements

1 hilt

2 crystals.

 

grand total, you have 27 slots to fill each slot can have added stuffs.

 

You'll have to juggle endurance with Willpower, but as a Sorc, Willpower is the no brainer to focus on in that trade off unless you total around 2000 willpower, or really 1900 willpower, then you may as well go endurance for the other items.

 

just make sure that you have a total of 6 modifications that boost your critical, and your surge. 6 modifications that increase power.

 

After that, hammer down willpower, and hammer down your alacrity. If for PVP, get willpower to 1900 and your expertise as close to 1900 as well, in PVP this is considered a double stacked willpower.

 

For example, if your willpower is 1900, you have maxed around 2000 effect

If your expertise is 1900, you have maxed around 2000 effect. both stack together as seperate entities but same effect.

 

So 3800 combined total willpower/expertise, gives you a 4000 effect across all your stats. Confused? See youtube for diagrams.

 

But in a nutshell, this is what you want to focus on.The more power you have btw, the stronger your base attack is before crits, the stronger effect surge has on crit damage, so when you DO crit, with power maxed, and surg maxed, you can achieve 1.8x critical hits.

 

But as you level, just think 6 to power, 6 to surge, 6 to crit, rest all to alacrity and willpower. surge and crit usually stack in the same item modifications, but still.

 

However, only class this goes for is the Sorcerer/Sage, because Assassin it will depend if you're DPS or Tank, same as Juggernaut, etc. but roughly, I'm not having too many issues sticking to this.

Edited December 6, 2014 by benovide

[AlrikFassbauer]

When I read things like this, I see that there is really no choice whatsoever in playing toons in SWTOR in general.

[Darth_Dreselus]

I'm sticking to 0 crit and 7/3 ala/surge until I see something that convinces me otherwise.

 

Interesting is just how much the gameplay for a Sage has changed. It's now a lot more fast paced as there is no longer focus on big heals (Deliverance and Salvation heal for less) but rather juggling a diverse rotation of fairly fast paced casts. The Instant free Benevolence is great as is on the move Healing Trance and I find that I almost never have to use Noble Sacrifice. The changes to Conveyance now actually lead to a meaningful choice as it is not as crucial to use it with Healing Trance and can instead be used for a GCD Deliverance cast (which can than be used for some pretty nice burst with an instant Benevolence, especially with the set bonus auto crit) as well as the burst that can be gained from a Roaming mend that will heal instantly.

 

I'm pretty happy with the current state but it needs lot more playtime for definitive views.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Darth_Dreselus

[Rendet]

All the comm gear sets for sage/sorc are crap. It's full of crit/surg all the way up to ultimate. Since none of our abilities rely on crit for any procs it makes stacking it above diminishing returns pointless. That is why we have always prioritized

 

Power>alacrity>surge

 

I believe gloves and boots are the only items with useful mods/enhancement combos in all of the comm gear. Hopefully you already have set bonuses for your armorings. I just bought a ton of gloves myself and ripped the mods/enhancements out.

[Jinn_Weller]

All the comm gear sets for sage/sorc are crap. It's full of crit/surg all the way up to ultimate. Since none of our abilities rely on crit for any procs it makes stacking it above diminishing returns pointless. That is why we have always prioritized

 

Power>alacrity>surge

 

I believe gloves and boots are the only items with useful mods/enhancement combos in all of the comm gear. Hopefully you already have set bonuses for your armorings. I just bought a ton of gloves myself and ripped the mods/enhancements out.

 

I thought alacrity are useless?

Sorry, I'm still reading a lot due to this new 3.0

Sage healer here.

[CloudzDeven]

I thought alacrity are useless?

Sorry, I'm still reading a lot due to this new 3.0

Sage healer here.

 

"Alacrity changes

 

Alacrity has always been the red haired stepchild of the stats.

Alacrity now does the following

Speed up ability activation, GCD, resource generation

Speed up dot ticks, duration of channel and DoTs

Reduce internal cooldowns on stuff like procs.

If you have 20% alacrity, you should be hitting all of your buttons 20% faster"

 

Alacrity is now the go to stat even before Power now.

[ProcessHeals]

"Alacrity changes

 

Alacrity has always been the red haired stepchild of the stats.

Alacrity now does the following

Speed up ability activation, GCD, resource generation

Speed up dot ticks, duration of channel and DoTs

Reduce internal cooldowns on stuff like procs.

If you have 20% alacrity, you should be hitting all of your buttons 20% faster"

 

Alacrity is now the go to stat even before Power now.

 

Does anybody know if the activation/cooldown/tick/channel/etc times are rounded, or is it all precisely X% faster? Makes a huge difference on how the gearing will work. Either way, would it really be forgoing all other possible stats from enhancements (surge) and augments (pwr, wp, etc) to max out at probably no more than 15~20%? Based on some rough calculations of mine, it seems like you would be giving up too much there.

 

My current projected enhancements will give me about 70% surge and 6% alac, just don't know what to do with augs. Not sure whether power is noticeably better than wp for bonus healing in this update or if that would outweigh the secondary stats you get from wp. Anyone messed around withe this stuff yet?

[Cotlu-Hunlon]

*Copy + Pasted from an identical thread I just replied to*

 

^ There is so much nonsense up there ... and overcomplication ..... It's quite simple really

 

Willpower > endurance armourings obviously

 

Willpower + Power mods

 

[Power + Alacrity] or [Power + surge] enchancements depending on preference

[ProcessHeals]

*Copy + Pasted from an identical thread I just replied to*

 

^ There is so much nonsense up there ... and overcomplication ..... It's quite simple really

 

Willpower > endurance armourings obviously

 

Willpower + Power mods

 

[Power + Alacrity] or [Power + surge] enchancements depending on preference

 

Yes, that much is particularly simple, I'm finding it's optimal to stack around 70% surge and then rest alac enhancements. However, there's the matter of 14 augments and what's BiS for them this patch. Has anybody messed around with the numbers on that yet?

[CloudzDeven]

Does anybody know if the activation/cooldown/tick/channel/etc times are rounded, or is it all precisely X% faster? Makes a huge difference on how the gearing will work. Either way, would it really be forgoing all other possible stats from enhancements (surge) and augments (pwr, wp, etc) to max out at probably no more than 15~20%? Based on some rough calculations of mine, it seems like you would be giving up too much there.

 

My current projected enhancements will give me about 70% surge and 6% alac, just don't know what to do with augs. Not sure whether power is noticeably better than wp for bonus healing in this update or if that would outweigh the secondary stats you get from wp. Anyone messed around withe this stuff yet?

I'm not familiar with any stat being rounded past 2 decimal points(i.e 8.75%) so I doubt alacrity all of a sudden rounds past that to whole numbers. I'm currently at 8.??% of alacrity and 67% surge for my healer. I don't think it's wise to go full alacrity because you still need some "power" behind your skills, but I'm going to try to at most run about 3 pieces of surge and have the rest as alacrity. Ideally I'd like to keep alacrity at 10%+ and surge around 67-70%.

 

Augments should still be willpower, but I've noticed that with the reduction of our heals post 3.0 I've been going for a more "get as many heals in as possible" strategy than "make all my heals as big as possible" one. The changes to alacrity and the increased mobility of sorc healers sort of reflects that with Roaming Mend and Dark Heal(with proc) being instant as well as the ability to use Innervate on the go now. I rarely use my big heals like Dark Infusion anymore so the bigger surge doesn't help as much since the base heal isn't that large anymore.

Edited December 8, 2014 by CloudzDeven

[benovide]

Just so you all know, my 60 sorc maxed out with Alacrity, I have a 41% alacrity, unless better gear/higher alacrity modifications are out there, you can get up to 41% faster on all things.

 

Fricken A it is awesome.

 

Only issue now is keeping force power up.

 

But DPS per parse has jumped 38% DPS for lightening, and 34% for Madness, and HPS is up 35%.

Edited December 8, 2014 by benovide

[Baalzamon]

Just so you all know, my 60 sorc maxed out with Alacrity, I have a 41% alacrity, unless better gear/higher alacrity modifications are out there, you can get up to 41% faster on all things.

 

Fricken A it is awesome.

 

Only issue now is keeping force power up.

 

But DPS per parse has jumped 38% DPS for lightening, and 34% for Madness, and HPS is up 35%.

 

I wonder if this will work good in pvp?

[ProcessHeals]

Just so you all know, my 60 sorc maxed out with Alacrity, I have a 41% alacrity, unless better gear/higher alacrity modifications are out there, you can get up to 41% faster on all things.

 

Fricken A it is awesome.

 

Only issue now is keeping force power up.

 

But DPS per parse has jumped 38% DPS for lightening, and 34% for Madness, and HPS is up 35%.

 

There is no possible way you can get 41% alacrity without ability/procs. The maximum alacrity points that can be stacked with all 10 optimized 198 enhancements and all 14 186 augments is 1928. To get 5% alacrity you need about 400 points in it, even if there were no DR (which there certainly are) 1928 points would still be less than 25% (I suspect it's closer to 20).

 

Also, even if you weren't completely full of **** and did actually have 41% alacrity, there's no way your parses would increase that much due to all of the lost pwr/wp and surge.

 

tl;dr This guy is pulling numbers out of his ***, don't trust a single thing he posts.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Tshain

[MusicRider]

However, there's the matter of 14 augments and what's BiS for them this patch. Has anybody messed around with the numbers on that yet?

 

WP weakly always for sages/sorcs. http://dulfy.net/2014/08/29/swtor-mechanics-basics-understanding-the-debate-on-best-augments/

 

EDIT: Unless the formulas have changed in 3.0.

Edited December 8, 2014 by MusicRider

[benovide]

I wonder if this will work good in pvp?

 

It does, everyone who is Sorc die hard is going to Lightening Spec for PVP.

[benovide]

There is no possible way you can get 41% alacrity without ability/procs. The maximum alacrity points that can be stacked with all 10 optimized 198 enhancements and all 14 186 augments is 1928. To get 5% alacrity you need about 400 points in it, even if there were no DR (which there certainly are) 1928 points would still be less than 25% (I suspect it's closer to 20).

 

Also, even if you weren't completely full of **** and did actually have 41% alacrity, there's no way your parses would increase that much due to all of the lost pwr/wp and surge.

 

tl;dr This guy is pulling numbers out of his ***, don't trust a single thing he posts.

 

Umm,,, yeah, the 1928 is 1946, and it is 35 Alacrity per 1% then your boosters. L2P and read the mechanics, in burst, from start to force being wiped, boost is that dramatic.

 

Parse follows exactly what game is saying numbers are when damage inflicted.

Edited December 8, 2014 by benovide

[benovide]

OH and by the way,

 

a 1.5 cast time lowered to a .9 second cast, that's a 41% drop in casting time.

 

Figure that one

[Cotlu-Hunlon]

tl;dr This guy is pulling numbers out of his ***, don't trust a single thing he posts.

 

Ikr, look through his post history it's hilarious how much he thinks he knows

[benovide]

Ikr, look through his post history it's hilarious how much he thinks he knows

 

Tell me then,

 

what is .9 seconds to 1.5 seconds?

 

What is 3.54 seconds to 6 seconds?

 

If you've taken basic math, it shouldn't be hard for you to figure out what percent .9 is to 1.5, nor 3.54 is to 6

 

I'll be waiting for your answer.

Edited December 8, 2014 by benovide

[MusicRider]

1946, and it is 35 Alacrity per 1%

 

Just to point out from your sayings that since 35 alacrity points translate to 1% of alacrity rate then:

1946 / 35 = 55.6

 

So you must have 55.6% alacrity, not 41% as you say in your other post.

[benovide]

Just to point out from your sayings that since 35 alacrity points translate to 1% of alacrity rate then:

1946 / 35 = 55.6

 

So you must have 55.6% alacrity, not 41% as you say in your other post.

 

Parse states 41%, because my 6 second cast was reduced to 3.54, and my 1 second cast reduced exactly to .87 seconds. Mathematically, that's 41% In total with a full rotation and lightning spec w/procs if force power can be kept enough, I can get up to 5 additional attacks in in the same time period using a guildies for duels to get timing down.

 

You have to be quicker with hotkeys and clicks, but in a 1 minute time period of identical equipment, and then with the other player in the same equipment but me in my alacrity gear, same rotation of: Affliction > Thundering blast > Chain lightning > Lightning flash > Shock > Crushing Darkness > force lightning or force storm Use procs, then Affliction.

 

I can get 5 additional moves in after rejuvenating my force charge. an additional total of 15 seconds added on the clock to deal damage.

Edited December 8, 2014 by benovide

[MusicRider]

Parse states 41%, because my 6 second cast was reduced to 3.54, and my 1 second cast reduced exactly to .87 seconds. Mathematically, that's 41%

 

You might want to reconsider then your statement that "35 is 1%". It is 47.5 for 1% (provided that there is a linear relation, i.e. no diminishing effects). Also, I am pretty sure that on your tab the alacrity is reported as % and if you hover over it it tells you which stats contribute to this %.

[benovide]

Just to point out from your sayings that since 35 alacrity points translate to 1% of alacrity rate then:

1946 / 35 = 55.6

 

So you must have 55.6% alacrity, not 41% as you say in your other post.

 

Parse states 41%, because my 6 second cast was reduced to 3.54, and my 1 second cast reduced exactly to .87 seconds. Mathematically, that's 41% In total with a full rotation and lightning spec w/procs if force power can be kept enough, I can get up to 5 additional attacks in in the same time period using a guildies for duels to get timing down.

 

You have to be quicker with hotkeys and clicks, but in a 1 minute time period of identical equipment, and then with the other player in the same equipment but me in my alacrity gear, same rotation of: Affliction > Thundering blast > Chain lightning > Lightning flash > Shock > Crushing Darkness > force lightning or force storm Use procs, then Affliction.

 

I can get 5 additional moves in after rejuvenating my force charge. an additional total of 15 seconds added on the clock to deal damage.