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RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Anubis Black - 10-09-2011 11:48 PM
Chain Shock is optional for now, but it might become quite viable depending on the time we spend moving during a fight and the amount of Shock casts per encounter. The same way it was determined that if a boss fight requires you to move more than 4sec. per minute speed on boots was the optimal enchant, it will be calculated based on movement frequency if Chain Shock provides more damage than the alternatives (e.g. Seeping Darkness).
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Wenchicus - 10-11-2011 11:53 PM
As I'm reading through the theorycrafting and familiarizing myself with the talent trees, I am coming to the conclusion that the Sorcerer DPS tree is much more mechanically related to the WoW Shadow Priest (dots and channels) Ele Shaman (forced crits, procs). ACTUALLY, the best comparison to mechanics is Arcane Mage Tier 5 2pc w/ Lightning Capacitor build that was popular in early Black Temple days. However, the WoW comparisons in terms of "which class is it" are really unnecessary. The mechanics are a little different, and being a little different, are unique. In that respect, it's more important to judge the class from a perspective not measured by Warcraft.
What is relevant from WoW is the lack of massive stat stacking. In the recent expansions of WoW, crit, haste, and damage have been able to be stacked to the point where it was just insane. The SWTOR make-up will be a welcome return, in my opinion, to the days of Vanilla WoW.
As such, it's important to judge individual talents and itemization with what turns out to be most central to DPS and force efficiency. While I expect initial end game raids to be fairly short encounters. They will get longer. They always do.
The question of how much a priority Thundering Blast is in our rotation is extremely important. The higher the percentage of total damage allocated to Thundering Blast, the less important Force Crit is and more important Surge is. Given that talented it is a forced crit, Crit rating is completely worthless to the talent.
Conversely, it is exceptionally important to find out how our force use efficiency is in extended encounters. Will Sith Efficacy combined with normal rotation use of Force Lighting plus selective use of Meditation be enough? Do you even need Sith Efficiency if Lightning Effusion is utilized properly?
Edit:
I also have a question about Recklessness's place in the rotation (especially at the beginning of an encounter). It would be a complete waste to pop Recklessness at a point in the rotation where one of the two spells it would use a proc on would be Thundering Blast - which is already a forced crit. Thus, it should be used at least two spells prior to your next Thundering Blast crit. So, my questions are the following: how does your crit rate affect Affliction? Does each tick have a chance to crit equal to your force crit at the time of cast? Or is it some other function? (MMOs differ greatly on DoTs). The IP questions whether Crushing Darkness should really be the second cast in the rotation - if it is smart to use Recklessness on Affliction, then the second cast must be something other than Thundering Blast. Thus Crushing Darkness would have potential. However, would Chain Lightening be a better candidate given that it also benefits from the 50% bonus crit damage from Reverberating Force? Obviously, the question of what spell should come second is based off the prioritization of assumed crit.
I'd appreciate input from anybody with more insight.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Anubis Black - 10-12-2011 07:29 AM
Indeed the DPS Sorc/Sage is a mixture of SP/Warlock/Mage/Ele Shaman and as such is very appealing to all casters, particularly being the only "clothie" makes it even more sought after. The fact that the majority of players will choose the class and spec will give us a huge amount of data, so it is welcomed.
Force efficiency issues will arise once we are faced with prolonged encounters, however the suggested skill build takes that into consideration. Force Lightning can no longer be used to regen force, as the talent providing it is out of reach. If by Meditation you mean Consumption, it is a valid way to gain force for a couple of casts, but its drawback is quite severe and many questions of its viability arise.
Crit will give us force through Lightning Effusion, so this will bump its relative stat value. You are correct about TB devaluing crit rating and increasing the value of Surge. We have as of now no information on the percentage of total damage TB will deal and due to its CD it will possibly not play such a deterministic role in our rotation (even though still providing a heavy chunk of damage).
Crit rate affects each tick of a DoT. This is the assumption we are working with, so if anyone objects or has other information, please share it with us. Recklessness is best utilised right after TB is cast or as you suggest a few abilities prior to TB. There are two main possible openers: Affl, TB, R + PS, CrD, LS, LS, ... or R + PS, LS, LS, LS, ... , Affl, TB, CrD, etc. depending on the damage increase of Conduction relative to the first rotation. Both CL and FL are great candidates for Recklessness, but the fact that we will most likely only cast them when LSm or LB proc (respectively), it is highly unlikely we will want to delay R for when those are up. Calculations need to be made once we have more data.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Wenchicus - 10-12-2011 11:40 AM
Alright - so expert opinion here, as you are more in the know that I.
Does it seem to you that the latest changes reflect an intention to "Shadow Priest" the lightening tree to ensure a sufficient number of healers on servers?
I mean, it's a valid concern and not just hypothetical whining. It took a number of Xpacs (and complaining) for S-Priests to become viable for end game raiding. And even then, there was a method to the madness of why.
Now - a reply to the rotation question. Casting Affliction after LS x 3 in the second rotation might not be maximizing DPS. After all, it means you're losing DoT damage from the period represented by GCD + LS + LS + LS. That time period will be roughly 5 seconds, and with Affliction ticking every 3 seconds, it means you lose 1.6 ticks of Affliction. Now (rounding to convenient numbers from the data posted earlier), if a normal tick is 400 and a crit is 700 the 3% force damage bonus would come to between 12 and 21 per tick. If every tick crit, the increased damage would still be half of a single unbuffed tick, and significantly lower than 1.6 ticks worth of damage. Casting it sooner rather than later would seem to be the most efficient option, and thus should go Affl. LS LS LS.
(10-03-2011 07:20 AM)Anubis Black Wrote: Crit rate affects each tick of a DoT. This is the assumption we are working with, so if anyone objects or has other information, please share it with us. Recklessness is best utilised right after TB is cast or as you suggest a few abilities prior to TB. There are two main possible openers: Affl, TB, R + PS, CrD, LS, LS, ... or R + PS, LS, LS, LS, ... , Affl, TB, CrD, etc. depending on the damage increase of Conduction relative to the first rotation. Both CL and FL are great candidates for Recklessness, but the fact that we will most likely only cast them when LSm or LB proc (respectively), it is highly unlikely we will want to delay R for when those are up. Calculations need to be made once we have more data.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Anubis Black - 10-13-2011 01:57 AM
I am not sure I follow your initial query about the latest changes and how they relate to ensuring a sufficient number of healers. Sorcs/Sages are not Shadow Priests and they never will be. There is no hybrid tax in SWTOR, since all of the classes are hybrids. So this is not a valid concern at all.
You cannot really compare one ability to another in the case of the rotation possibilities. You have to compare the DPS over a period of time in both cases. Not casting Affl first means you will lose X ticks of the DoT, but in the same time you will have done Y amount of damage through LS. I am also quite certain that casting Weaken Mind would be the optimal start of the rotation, however we need the base damage of all abilities for more accurate computations. Again, CrD, TB, LSm and LB procs are also to be thrown in the mix, so it might be a good idea to concentrate on figuring out the damage formula to start proper calculations.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Wenchicus - 10-13-2011 08:30 AM
Your last point is taken, but also remember that the cast time lost from LS will be made up later.
If the rotation is Affl. LS LS LS rather than LS LS LS Affl. you are making up the cast time on the first LS by omitting to cast Affl. after the third LS. Successive Affl. will then simply come 5 seconds sooner, and the GCDs on those casts will be made up by not having to cast it 5 seconds later.
I'm assuming that the GCD is the typical 0.7 sec, which with a couple milliseconds lag is half of an LS cast
Initial Rotation
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
A L S L S L S
Other way around
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
L S L S L S A
You end up in the same place after 5 seconds, with the same spells cast. As the rotation projects out, the earlier cast of Affliction will be made up for by nixing the need for a later cast. Since the timing remains constant, it's more of a shift rather than an opportunity cost. In the former situation, you get an extra 1.6 ticks (5 seconds) of Affliction at the cost of 5.4 (16 seconds) ticks of affliction w/o the 3% damage bonus. Furthermore, those extra ticks might give you an early Etherality proc.
Now - this is really a moot argument as far as I'm concerned; as I feel like your other proposed rotation will be correct (A TB [Reck] LS LS LS). It seems odd to not use the TB cd as soon as possible, especially if the delay in casting it would come very close to representing the entire cd.
Anyway - I'll be quiet now
(10-13-2011 01:57 AM)Anubis Black Wrote: I am not sure I follow your initial query about the latest changes and how they relate to ensuring a sufficient number of healers. Sorcs/Sages are not Shadow Priests and they never will be. There is no hybrid tax in SWTOR, since all of the classes are hybrids. So this is not a valid concern at all.
You cannot really compare one ability to another in the case of the rotation possibilities. You have to compare the DPS over a period of time in both cases. Not casting Affl first means you will lose X ticks of the DoT, but in the same time you will have done Y amount of damage through LS. I am also quite certain that casting Weaken Mind would be the optimal start of the rotation, however we need the base damage of all abilities for more accurate computations. Again, CrD, TB, LSm and LB procs are also to be thrown in the mix, so it might be a good idea to concentrate on figuring out the damage formula to start proper calculations.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - LB_StorM - 10-13-2011 04:12 PM
(10-13-2011 08:30 AM)Wenchicus Wrote: I'm assuming that the GCD is the typical 0.7 sec, which with a couple milliseconds lag is half of an LS cast
It's 1.5s.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Anubis Black - 10-13-2011 09:26 PM
The GCD is indeed 1.5 sec.
The new Sorcerer trees can be seen here. And yes, we already discussed some of the changes previously using the Sage trees. But the interesting addition in the video above are the casting times (activation times, I'm never going to get used to this) of Innervate, Revivification, Chain Lightning and Thundering Blast. Every ability with a casting time 3 sec. has a new activation time of 2.8 sec, and every ability that had 2 sec. activation time now has a 1.8 sec casting time. I would like to point you to this post where you can see the Alacrity formula, assumed to be identical to the Haste formula. Performing various calculations using the formula
and taking into consideration the obvious rounding (assumed to be down if < 0.05 and up otherwise, e.g. 1.75002 = 1.8; 1.7499 = 1.7), I concluded that the Alacrity that this character has through gear should be in the range (8.1%, 9.1%). Judging by the 33 talent points available, this is a level 42 (Talent points available = Level - 10 + 1 => Level = Talent points + 9), thus loosely assuming linearity we can expect a very rough increase in Alacrity through gear at level 50 of 50 / 42 = 1.19, giving us a range of (9.64%, 10.83%).
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Alratan - 10-14-2011 04:41 AM
Out of interest, have we received any form of confirmation on Alacrity using the Haste formula? There's no reason not to assume so at this point, but it'd be good to find out for definite.
RE: Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage DPS Compendium - Anubis Black - 10-14-2011 04:50 AM
The source of numbers used for the damage of abilities is this post. Also assumed is a baseline 30% crit chance (including 3% from Seeping Darkness/Penetrating Light), 0 Surge and 10% Alacrity.
Lightning Strike/Disturbance
Base cast time: 1.5 sec
Talents that enhance it:
Disingtegration/Critical Kinesis
10% crit.
Convection/Clamoring Force
6% bonus damage.
Subversion/Concentration
Reduces pushback by 70%. Increases force regen by 10% for 10 seconds, stacks 3 times. Makes it necessarily cast at least once every 10 seconds to keep up all 3 stacks.
Lightning Storm/Tidal Force
30% chance to make Chain Lightning/Telekinetic Wave instant. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds. 10 seconds are roughly 7 LS casts. So if we spam the ability for this time period, we will get
since this is a Binomial B(7, 0.3). Thus, on average, we will get around 2 procs per every 7 casts. But the spamming scenario is unrealistic. For n LS casts, we can expect to have n * 0.3 LSm procs, so on average will get around 1 proc per every 4 LS casts.
Forked Lightning/Telekinetic Momentum in conjunction with Conduction/Tremors
30% chance on both LS and CL to deal 1.3 times more damage and to increase total damage by 1% for 30 seconds, stacks 3 times. We have the same Binomial distribution of FkL procs as the one used for LSm procs. Here we want to get to 3 stacks as fast as possible and keep them up consequently, which won't be as challenging, considering we are required to cast LS at least once every 10 seconds for force regen, and possibly more to fish for LSm procs. Thus, Conduction should have a 100% uptime, and in the case of extremely unlucky RNG (i.e. 0 procs with 6 seconds remaining of 3% increased damage left), 4 LS casts should yield 1.2 procs on average, thus not letting the stacks fall off almost surely. Actually, in 4 LS casts:
This does not include the contribution from CL. We need to take into account the 30% chance of LSm proc and furthermore the 30% chance of FkL proc for LSmCL. So there is a 0.09 extra chance of a proc. Since the two events are independent, the total chance to proc FkL is 0.39. In order to keep up the force regen bonus, we need to cast at least 3 LS's in the 30 seconds that the stacks are up, which will yield 1.17 FkL procs on average.
The above is to show how much of a baseline ability Lightning Strike/Disturbance actually is. It is the most important ability in our rotation and its use will play a decisive role for our DPS.
Damage calculations
From the post mentioned above, LS deals 1038 (crit) damage on average and 692 (hit). So we can calculate
Affliction/Weaken Mind
Base cast time: 1.5 sec (instant)
DoT duration: 15 sec (base), 21 sec (talented)
Tick frequency: 3 sec
Talents that enhance it:
Exsanguinate/Disturb Mind
Increases the duration of the DoT by 6 seconds or 2 extra ticks.
Lightning Barrage/Psychic Projection
Tick crits proc a hasted FL. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds. Using the 0.3 chance once again, we can similarly find the expected number of LB procs in n ticks to be n * 0.3. Thus for a full Affl (21 seconds), there will be 2.1 LB procs on average. This gives roughly 1 proc every 10 seconds as necessary to utilize the talent optimally.
Reverberating Force/Reverberation
Increases crit damage bonus by 50%, i.e. crit multiplier of 2.
In addition, guarantees TB crits, which further increases its importance and cements its place in the rotation.
Damage calculations
We can see 388 (crit) ticks and 183 (hit) ticks. So we have
Crushing Darkness/Mind Crush
Base cast time: 2 sec
DoT duration: 6 sec
Tick frequency: 1 sec
Talents that enhance it:
Convection/Clamoring Force
6% bonus damage.
Damage calculations
Calculations to be included once we have more information.
Thundering Blast/Turbulence
Base cast time: 2 sec
CD: 9 sec
Talents that enhance it:
Convection/Clamoring Force
6% bonus damage.
Subversion/Concentration
Reduces pushback by 70%.
Reverberating Force/Reverberation
Increases crit damage bonus by 50%, i.e. crit multiplier of 2.
Damage calculations
From the data 2116.2 (crit) damage on average, always crits when Affl is up. Hit would logically be 1058.1.
Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw
Channeling time: 3 sec
Tick frequency: 1 sec
CD: 6 sec
Talents that enhance it:
Calcify/Empowered Throw
12% bonus damage.
Disingtegration/Critical Kinesis
10% crit.
Lightning Barrage/Psychic Projection
Doubles its damage by halving the channeling time and tick frequency. New channel time is 1.5 sec and new tick frequency is 0.5 sec.
Damage calculations
The video shows 634 (crit) damage ticks and 364 (hit) ticks.
Since Calcify has been revamped and now boosts FL's damage by 12% (which was not present in the build of the EV Sorc), it is also possible to use 1163 for the damage in the third case, which is assumed to be the only viable use of FL.
Chain Lightning/Telekinetic Wave
Base cast time: 3 sec
CD: 6 sec
Talents that enhance it:
Convection/Clamoring Force
6% bonus damage.
Subversion/Concentration
Reduces pushback by 70%.
Lightning Storm/Tidal Force
Discussed in LS.
Forked Lightning/Telekinetic Momentum in conjunction with Conduction/Tremors
Discussed in LS.
Reverberating Force/Reverberation
Increases crit damage bonus by 50%, i.e. crit multiplier of 2.
Damage calculations
Calculations to be included once we have more information.
Shock/Project
Base cast time: 1.5 sec (instant)
CD: 6 sec
Talents that enhance it:
None.
Damage calculations
The only cast in the video is a 1150 (crit), thus a hit would be 766.67, assuming a 1.5 crit multiplier.
Summary
Assumptions
- Alacrity reduces the GCD, but does not add an extra Affl tick (at least not at 10%).
- FL only cast on LB procs, otherwise its DPCT is too low.
- TB only cast when Affl is up.
| Ability | DPCT |
|---|---|
| Affl | 1255.1 |
| AfflTB | 1163.91 |
| LBFL | 1163 |
| Shock | 646.56 |
| LS | 608.96 |
These results prove my initial logic from a few months ago. The rotation that needs to be used is quite obvious. LSmCL will be comparable to LBFL and it is still an open question which one will have a higher DPCT. CrD needs to perform really well to find a place among the above, but is still a very good option. As for Shock, the only possible way it can be made viable is through Chain Shock/Upheaval and calculations need to be made to compare it to the alternatives. For now it seems LS will outperform it, due to the better scaling and being improved by a huge amount of talents compared to none that enhance Shock. The damage difference is negligible and I still think it will only be used while moving and no other procs are up.
(10-14-2011 04:41 AM)Alratan Wrote: Out of interest, have we received any form of confirmation on Alacrity using the Haste formula? There's no reason not to assume so at this point, but it'd be good to find out for definite.
I expected people in the Beta weekend would test it, I'm surprised no one has come forward and confirmed/denied it.