Power build

[Vember]

Anyone tried a 14 power augment build yet on a Scoundrel/operative for pvp?

[snave]

Anyone tried a 14 power augment build yet on a Scoundrel/operative for pvp?

 

I tried it out the other day.

 

Previously I was using 7 Alacrity and 7 Mastery but I thought I'd try out full power to see what the difference is.

 

Basically, there's little difference between Mastery and Power.

 

If you want to go a full damage build (as in no Alacrity augments) I'd recommend Mastery over Power. Here's a little breakdown of the differences to save you buying 14 augments.

 

Each Mastery augment I replaced with Power gave me +2 Bonus Damage but l lost 0.1 Crit % (not multiplier just Crit) so you really just need to compare what you gain overall. 1.4% Crit vs 28 Bonus Damage. These comparisons were made with all class buffs so it does already include the 5% increase to Mastery buff.

 

Personally, I feel the 1.4% Crit would outperform the flat Bonus Damage because not only is the difference very small but we also have the talent Meticulously Kept Blades which gives us a 10% critical damage increase on Veiled Strike, Backstab, Volatile Substance and Laceration. The extra crit will benefit from this so seeing as the difference between the two stats is so small anyway I believe this tips Mastery over Power.

 

Probably worth mentioning here too, you really need to pick up a couple of Alacrity pieces of gear because once you start getting close to all 242 gear you'll have so much Crit Rating you'll be balls deep into the diminishing returns on it. I'm estimating you want to have no more than 1800 Crit Rating. Ideally, I think you'll want it around the 1750ish mark, maybe even a little lower.

 

Looking at the Operative gear available it's probably best for us to try and get our Alacrity from Implants and Earpiece slots. If you try to get Alacrity Enhancements instead then you're looking at potentially grinding 230-236-242 just to get one enhancement. It's much more economical to get Alacrity from Implants / Earpieces.

 

The only set pieces that have Alacrity are the Enforcer headpiece so if you already have 242 crit Implants and Earpiece I'd recommend respeccing to healing when you open your crates because they have headpiece and chest with Alacrity enhancements.

 

For my gear, I went with the Field Medic boots rather than Enforcer set as they come with power/crit and you can afford to drop one set piece and still maintain set bonus. The way the RNG system is set up you're very likely to get some duplication in gear so make sure you rip out the crit / power enhancements you get so you can use them to replace the default accuracy in some of the slots.

[olagatonjedi]

At max gear, optimized with crit at least 40%, the % increase damage bonus from power that you gain is always more than the % damage bonus and % crit increase from Mastery, if comparing the overall % increase from the starting values. Edited March 30, 2017 by olagatonjedi

[snave]

At max gear, optimized with crit at least 40%, the % increase damage bonus from power that you gain is always more than the % damage bonus and % crit increase from Mastery, if comparing the overall % increase from the starting values.

 

Yeah like I said, it's 2 bonus damage vs 0.1 crit per augment. There is no crit DR from mastery so that should be flat regardless how much you have.

 

I prefer the crit due to our surge bonus but the difference is slight, spec how you want

[olagatonjedi]

Yeah like I said, it's 2 bonus damage vs 0.1 crit per augment. There is no crit DR from mastery so that should be flat regardless how much you have.

 

I prefer the crit due to our surge bonus but the difference is slight, spec how you want

There is definitely diminishing returns on crit % with mastery. There is no diminishing return on damage bonus for both power and mastery, though.

[snave]

There is definitely diminishing returns on crit % with mastery. There is no diminishing return on damage bonus for both power and mastery, though.

 

I'll double check this later with my augments. IIRC I was getting the same amount of crit per Mastery augment I used from start to finish so it may be a case that the DR is set to plateaux out at a low number.

 

I'll update this post with screenshots when I'm done.

 

Update:

 

So I tried removing my Mastery augments are you are correct, there appears to be a very slight DR on the stat. At the high end I was getting 0.09% crit rather than the expect 0.1%. I'm not sure this really makes a huge difference but I'll certainly keep an eye on it when the new gear drops because we should be getting around 300 more Mastery from that set so it may clearly push Power ahead then.

Edited April 5, 2017 by snave

[olagatonjedi]

I'll double check this later with my augments. IIRC I was getting the same amount of crit per Mastery augment I used from start to finish so it may be a case that the DR is set to plateaux out at a low number.

 

I'll update this post with screenshots when I'm done.

 

Update:

 

So I tried removing my Mastery augments are you are correct, there appears to be a very slight DR on the stat. At the high end I was getting 0.09% crit rather than the expect 0.1%. I'm not sure this really makes a huge difference but I'll certainly keep an eye on it when the new gear drops because we should be getting around 300 more Mastery from that set so it may clearly push Power ahead then.

Toss the formulas into an excel spreadsheet, with incremental increases from 5-50, and you can​ see the DR curve for any stat at any stat rating. Can even compare the curves layered on each other to see which curve is more dramatic.

[yellow_]

math god Bant took care of the math on this for every spec months ago: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GtgkOZDgcA3dlBjdoLUzg02zNl9_5fvCU48iY-P0vv0/edit#gid=1633017068

 

Thanks in large part to the inquisitor class buff (which makes every point of Mastery effectively 1.05 points) Mastery will produce more DPS/HPS than Power for every single spec in the game. It has nothing to do with Operatives in particular, buffs like meticulously kept blades, or any of that.

 

The difference is small but clear. If you aren't interested in more crit or more alacrity, you go with mastery at that point. The justification for power would be that, when crits happen, you want them to be as big as possible as part of some burst strategy I guess but it will be a slight DPS loss.

Toss the formulas into an excel spreadsheet, with incremental increases from 5-50, and you can​ see the DR curve for any stat at any stat rating. Can even compare the curves layered on each other to see which curve is more dramatic.

It is mostly pointless to eyeball DR curves where the dependent variable is crit chance, cast speed, and so on. These are just a factor in the DR curve that actually matters: DPS/HPS output.

There is no crit DR from mastery so that should be flat regardless how much you have

The crit chance from mastery definitely has DR. Edited April 8, 2017 by yellow_