Virulence rotation help

[howdor]

Hey all im having serious trouble getting good numbers from virulence, ive looked at the top parses from parsely and tried to mimic some rotations as best i can but im just not pulling the numbers.

 

My gear thus far: (Mixture of BIS 192s with sprinkled in 198 mods (some BIS some not)

Cunning: 4103

power:1567

accuracy:745

crit: 471

surge:412

alacrity: 276

 

I will provide 2 parses

1. THIS one http://parsely.io/parser/view/49438/1 is what i should be getting. ( i had friend test it out)

2. THIS one http://parsely.io/parser/view/61055 is what im getting myself (i know my apm is 7 moves lower)

 

i would appreciate any and all help to help me improve thanks!

[Whojoo]

Ok few things I notice. For starters you delay stuff compared to your friend.

You refresh your Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade on average an full second later. This means delaying your entire rotation by a second everytime. In your case that means you missed out on 2 Culls by your DoTs alone.

Your Weakening Blast is about 1.5 seconds delayed on average and your Cull close to a full second.

 

These delays delay your entire rotation which result in delaying the damage you deal. Your biggest thing to work on is hitting abilities faster. Try it on a dummy for a few times, just hit things faster than you are comfortable with and allow mistakes to happen. Eventually you'll train yourself to make less mistakes in that speed.

 

I do not know if you have already keybound your abilities, but I advice you to. Next to that I advice you to use the ability queue. The ability queue means you can hit abilities before the GCD (1.5s) ends and before a casted ability is finish casting. Does not work well with channels though, so to list things:

 

Works after:

• Takedown
  
• Lethal Shot (casted ability, hit next ability close before cast ends)
  
• Weakening Blast
  
• Corrosive Dart
  
• Corrosive Grenade
  
• Rifle Shot
  
• Covered Escape
  

 

Does not work after:

• Cull
  
• Series of Shots
  

So for these 2 just aim to hit the next ability as close to the end of the channel as possible.

 

Default queue time is 0.5s (so 0.5s before the GCD or a casted ability ends). It is somewhere in preferences in case you want to change the setting. I'd say try it out.

 

Now the next thing, Overload Shot. This is in my opinion the worst ability to get used to. Yes it gives slightly higher dps on a dummy but dummy scores are useless, they only tell what you can do if you do not have to pay attention to the fight. And they are nice for competing with friends

 

The utility for overload shot has 2 disadvantages:

First of all there are better utility options (dont know names on top of my head, but anything defensive is already better).

Second, it causes ability delay. You have to get out of cover, hit an ability and get back into cover. And that all within a single GCD time. The alternatives are a single button press and prevent ability delay.

You already struggle to prevent ability delay. Adding Overload Shot in your rotation will only cause more. And on bosses it is not beneficial. So all in all a bad habit to get used to in my opinion.

 

Now I did enter Covered Escape in my list above which is often used as a free filler on a dummy but not used on a boss, just like Overload Shot. However it does have mobility uses on bosses so it actually gets used during a boss fight and therefore falls in a different category than Overload Shot for me.

 

So what I advice you to do. Fight a dummy a few times a day and try to fight faster than you are comfortable with. Don't use Overload Shot and don't use adrenals during these practices (waste of adrenals if it is just for practice). I'd say without a stim as well, but that depends more on you. I usually practice without a stim on since it is cheaper

[howdor]

Thanks alot! 2 things i should note i do have my abilities keybound and play with a bit a graphics lag ow and again but not too big a deal considering i parse relatively high on my other toons. and Secondly my friend is a clicker So would that increase is APM above me significantly. Also i noticed on some of the parsely postings that alot of apms are around 34-35 on average, that would put me behind by about 3-4 apm on average does there mean there is something else going on for me to not hit the numbers?

[Whojoo]

Thanks alot! 2 things i should note i do have my abilities keybound and play with a bit a graphics lag ow and again but not too big a deal considering i parse relatively high on my other toons. and Secondly my friend is a clicker So would that increase is APM above me significantly. Also i noticed on some of the parsely postings that alot of apms are around 34-35 on average, that would put me behind by about 3-4 apm on average does there mean there is something else going on for me to not hit the numbers?

 

In the end being a clicker or not has no effect on apm for a Sniper. Someone who is an expert clicker can perform just as well as someone who binds his/her keys.

I prefer keybinding though since that way my mouse is camera movement only. Which is also why I generally advice people to bind they abilities.

 

The ability queue is here to help compensate for any connectivity lag and probably graphic lag as well. Though I am not sure about the latter.

 

APM is affected by multiple things, including getting in and out of cover. It looks like your friend re-entered cover a lot, which means the apm rises a lot.

 

I have not yet bothered to look at your rotation in depth since I am typing this while also playing the game

I'd say first try to raise your apm, that will probably raise your dps quite a bit already.

 

EDIT: Note, with raise your apm I do not mean get in and out of cover more Just do your rotation, but faster xD

Edited September 1, 2015 by Whojoo

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

The key to playing any class well is to keybind everything for your main rotation, and your main DCD's. Learn to spam the key for your next skill before the GCD has timed out, and learn the proper rotation. Also Virulence should have around 27% to 30% Critical Rating, because Crits on DoT damage heavily boost your resource regen rate.

[howdor]

The key to playing any class well is to keybind everything for your main rotation, and your main DCD's. Learn to spam the key for your next skill before the GCD has timed out, and learn the proper rotation. Also Virulence should have around 27% to 30% Critical Rating, because Crits on DoT damage heavily boost your resource regen rate.

 

Thanks for posting! Im running about 27% at the moment, ive experimented with higher (around 30%) and haven't seen much difference. 27% seems like a good number to me

[Whojoo]

Thanks for posting! Im running about 27% at the moment, ive experimented with higher (around 30%) and haven't seen much difference. 27% seems like a good number to me

 

I feel it is more personal preference. I run a little less on my Sniper and it works great for me.

[howdor]

Also i try to use Lethal Shots under weakening blast and sub 30% as filler. Should i use it more often if energy permits or keep doing what i have been doing?

[Whojoo]

Also i try to use Lethal Shots under weakening blast and sub 30% as filler. Should i use it more often if energy permits or keep doing what i have been doing?

 

There are 2 main fillers, Lethal Shot and Takedown.

When target it above 30% and Weakening Blast is not active, use Takedown.

In all other cases use Lethal Shot.

 

Now about the energy thing, plan ahead. Think of each Cull use as an end of a block.

So you get GCD > GCD > GCD > GCD > Cull

If the next block is a re-DoT block, then you must make sure you have the energy for it. So going below 70 energy in your current block is dangerous. However if you have Weakening Blast at the end of you current block, then you can empty out a bit more. Weakening Blast is free so it is one extra GCD of regaining energy.

 

If Target Aquired or Adrenaline Probe is nearly off cooldown, then you can empty out more as well. Be aware though, Target Aquired only gives 15 energy which basically gives one free Takedown or Lethal Shot.

 

If my energy is above 70 and the cooldown of Adrenaline Probe is less than 15, then I just say fk it and go all out

[Whojoo]

Ok so I have done some more analyzing. First of all I did a parse of my own to compare results (also used adrenal and stim to make it a fair comparison).

Stimmed and all I am close to your stats. I don't know what kind of barrel you use, mine is 186 (my luck fails me in ToS).

You have more surge than I do, I have more alacrity.

 

Now the thing I talk about here is again speed. I am also going a bit more in depth to your rotation below.

 

So your friend had the following results:

He used 146 GCD (not counting the precasted Lethal Shot)

He had 145,63 available

So his efficiency is 100.25%

 

Before you call him a hacker, I noticed that he ended the fight with an instant ability which ends the fight before the GCD is finished.

 

You used 146 GCD (not counting precasted Lethal Shot)

You had 157,82 available

So your efficiency is 92,51%

 

I used 154 GCD

I had 154,12 available

So my efficiency is 99,92%

 

As you can see the efficiencies are fairly close to what the dps results were. Although your friend did an awesome job. The difference between his and my dps is probably rotational choices and he obviously made the better choices (I hit 100% energy a few times when I could have avoided it).

 

The big thing here is, I used a Cull more than you did while also finishing the fight 10 seconds earlier. Cull does a ton of damage and using one more in 10 seconds less is a big thing!

 

Now more on your rotation.

I notice 2 blocks where you only used 3 GCD instead of the available 4 GCD between 2 Culls.

This is probably a case of not hitting abilities fast enough and having Cull off CD before you could the 4th ability.

 

I notice 1 block where you used 5! GCD instead of the available 4 GCD between 2 Culls. This one seems like a mistake, you seemed to forget that you had to re-apply DoTs.

 

Overall your structure seems fine. Looks like you use the Yolo 3-Cull which is different from Tac's 3-Cull which I use.

Both get about the same results though. Better to keep using this and get used to doing things faster.

 

Another thing that helps doing things faster is knowing ahead of time what you are going to do. I already know if I have to re-apply DoTs in the block after the next block. That influences how much energy I will dish out in the next block. And I have a fairly common structure in my rotation which helps in this planning ahead.

 

So I think I can give you a sort of todo list:

Understand the structure of your rotation and know which fillers you have to fill (example below).

Plan ahead, think of the abilities that can fill the empty spots in the next block.

Stick to the plan and the structure.

Button bash those abilities as the GCD or cast is about to end.

With a channel: If 0.2s are left of the channel, hit the next ability.

 

Now the structure example, first mine:

filler > filler > filler > Weakening Blast > Cull >

filler > filler > Series of Shots > Cull > repeat

 

Now what I think is yours:

Corrosive Dart > Corrosive Grenade > filler > Weakening Blast > Cull >

filler > filler > filler > filler > Cull >

Series of Shots > filler > Weakening Blast > Cull >

Corrosive Dart > Corrosive Grenade > filler > filler > Cull >

Series of Shots > filler > Weakening Blast > Cull >

filler > filler > filler > filler > Cull > repeat

 

Or short:

filler > filler > filler > Weakening Blast > Cull >

filler > filler > filler > filler > Cull > repeat

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

I noticed something in your Rotation section of your Parsely log... You didn't apply Corrosive Dart before Grenade in your opener. That is losing out on a BIG chunk of damage in an Ops run. Was that an oversight or do you do this often?

 

Edit: You are also filling out your damage with Corrosive Mine, which is hard to pull off in Ops, i'd stick to a more ops friendly parsing rotation, your damage may not look as good, but you will be closer to your normal operations damage.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Kaos_KidSWTOR

[Whojoo]

I noticed something in your Rotation section of your Parsely log... You didn't apply Corrosive Dart before Grenade in your opener. That is losing out on a BIG chunk of damage in an Ops run. Was that an oversight or do you do this often?

 

Edit: You are also filling out your damage with Corrosive Mine, which is hard to pull off in Ops, i'd stick to a more ops friendly parsing rotation, your damage may not look as good, but you will be closer to your normal operations damage.

 

explains why energy was more of an issue in that opener.... Usually I do use Corrosive Dart.

And I don't use the roll in ops, but during parsing I usually do.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

explains why energy was more of an issue in that opener.... Usually I do use Corrosive Dart.

And I don't use the roll in ops, but during parsing I usually do.

 

 

Well then, maybe you will have less problems in the next parse!

[howdor]

You were right on the money about my rotation by the way. another question i had i see in a couple parse like with Lockdowns here: http://parsely.io/parser/view/30986/0 that he did not apply corrosive dart until the second cull, granted this is a 2 cull rotation but i also see it again here with Tyrlen: http://parsely.io/parser/view/43474/6. Any reson behind that?

[Whojoo]

You were right on the money about my rotation by the way. another question i had i see in a couple parse like with Lockdowns here: http://parsely.io/parser/view/30986/0 that he did not apply corrosive dart until the second cull, granted this is a 2 cull rotation but i also see it again here with Tyrlen: http://parsely.io/parser/view/43474/6. Any reson behind that?

 

If it is the same as in my case then its simply "Ok I hit the button, nothing was affecting the GCD at this point so it probably went off, now lets hit Corrosive Grenade."

 

In other words all 3 of us probably assumed that Corrosive Dart was applied and just went on with out rotation.

[Steefr]

You were right on the money about my rotation by the way. another question i had i see in a couple parse like with Lockdowns here: http://parsely.io/parser/view/30986/0 that he did not apply corrosive dart until the second cull, granted this is a 2 cull rotation but i also see it again here with Tyrlen: http://parsely.io/parser/view/43474/6. Any reson behind that?

 

Well speaking as Tyrlen, i can't give you a good reason. I was 99,99% sure that corrosive dart went of in that parse but that it was just a parsely bug but then i checked my others on that site and there it does mention it. So basically, personal error i guess. Tho that sucks cuz it was one my best parse could've been ever higher. Anyway short answer: mistake.

[howdor]

Well speaking as Tyrlen, i can't give you a good reason. I was 99,99% sure that corrosive dart went of in that parse but that it was just a parsely bug but then i checked my others on that site and there it does mention it. So basically, personal error i guess. Tho that sucks cuz it was one my best parse could've been ever higher. Anyway short answer: mistake.

 

lol ok i was just wondering if it was just a special trick lol. What is you gear like on your sniper?

[Steefr]

lol ok i was just wondering if it was just a special trick lol. What is you gear like on your sniper?

 

Gear is full 198 + 204 bis. So stats are:

756 acc

Surge 302

Alacrity 672

Crit: 380 or so

about 4 or so mainstaut augs, 1 surge, 3 acc augs and rest alac

[howdor]

Update managed to get my apm up a tad bit more. Can someone check to see if my rotation is still behind?

http://parsely.io/parser/view/62821

[howdor]

Gear is full 198 + 204 bis. So stats are:

756 acc

Surge 302

Alacrity 672

Crit: 380 or so

about 4 or so mainstaut augs, 1 surge, 3 acc augs and rest alac

 

Would you remind recording a video of your self parsing your rotation for people who are sniper retarded like me?

[Whojoo]

Update managed to get my apm up a tad bit more. Can someone check to see if my rotation is still behind?

http://parsely.io/parser/view/62821

 

1 thing you should really focus on is use a minimum and maximum of 4 GCD between 2 Cull.

Your minimum time between Culls is great. The maximum however is a full 2 GCD delay!

EDIT: I should probably add that I saw 1 block with only 3 GCD used and multiple with 5 or 6 GCD used instead of the 4 GCD available.

 

I am a bit puzzled about the time between your DoTs, what did you try to do?

You re-applied too late for 2-Cull and waaay too early for 3-Cull.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Whojoo

[Steefr]

Would you remind recording a video of your self parsing your rotation for people who are sniper retarded like me?

 

I guess i can look into it, but don't hold your breath. Never done any recording and my comp is pretty **** for such stuff. I'll take a look at it tho when i've got time but i'm sure there are some good vids out already.

[AbashedDuk]

Well speaking as Tyrlen, i can't give you a good reason. I was 99,99% sure that corrosive dart went of in that parse but that it was just a parsely bug but then i checked my others on that site and there it does mention it. So basically, personal error i guess. Tho that sucks cuz it was one my best parse could've been ever higher. Anyway short answer: mistake.

 

It was a parsely bug. It did the same thing for mine and i know for a fact i applied corrosive dart.

Edited September 10, 2015 by AbashedDuk

[howdor]

Sycaro how your apm so high?

[howdor]

Another Question. Another one of my colleagues had an apm similar to mine and managed to get a very good parse along with it. at that point wold it be a gear discrepancy r what?

 

Parses in question: http://parsely.io/parser/view/54099/0, http://parsely.io/parser/view/28193/0