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**Alratan** · (This post was last modified: 09-05-2011 04:28 PM by Alratan.)

That's my instinct, as well. Surging Discharge does sufficient damage on its own, and has an extremely high fpd, so it would seem wise to use it whenever available, despite the stacks.

Grim · (This post was last modified: 09-06-2011 01:30 AM by Grim.)

Ok, ran around on my shadow for a bit this morning, collecting data is pain in the ass as the combat log doesn't keep track so I just have to run a tab in my head from the floating text.

Taking into account armor on the melee strikes gave me better values on those abilities, as well as seeing how much exposed weakness really grants (~10%).

With that taken into account, Run 5 takes the DPS lead, but I don't know how strongly I feel about that as I am giving a 4 stack assumption off 14 attacks.

Regardless, we are talking about a 0.23% difference in modeled DPS between waiting and not waiting for stacks.

As for the logic of less breach's in a total fight by waiting for stacks- the other way to look at is that when you use breach every CD, you are delaying your next shadow strike AND project, when you wait for stacks, project is used every time it comes off CD. Then, by waiting for those stacks, when you use breach, it is as if you are hitting with consecutive projects.

Edit: To give a really rough example - over the course of 65 attacks (with no sabre strikes)
hitting breach on CD would give you: 26 CS, 13 SS, 13 P, & 13 B.
Delaying Breach gives you a distribution of: 30 CS, 15 SS, 15 P, and 5 B.

Based on the damage that I am seeing on the tooltips, my level 20 shadow, and multipliers from talents/abilities - the loss of 2 Clairvoyant Strikes, 2 Projects and 3 stacks per breach, offsets the loss of 8 2-stack breach's.

**Gorodetski** · 09-06-2011, 02:00 AM

And this is why I need Beta... and also why I should try to do maths at three in the morning

I hadn't taken into account that delaying Breach/Discharge would free up GCD's for other, harder hitting moves Wink

I'd just kinda... assumed that Breach was our hardest hitting move, and would take prio over everything else, but this clearly isn't the case Tongue

so after Betaing a bit, what would you say is the rough prio list? something like B(5)>CS>SS>P>B(<5)?

Grim · 09-06-2011, 02:08 AM

(09-06-2011 02:00 AM)Gorodetski Wrote: And this is why I need Beta... and also why I should try to do maths at three in the morning

I hadn't taken into account that delaying Breach/Discharge would free up GCD's for other, harder hitting moves I'd just kinda... assumed that Breach was our hardest hitting move, and would take prio over everything else, but this clearly isn't the case

so after Betaing a bit, what would you say is the rough prio list? something like B(5)>CS>SS>P>B(<5)?

I would say the priority would be

Expose Weakness Shadow Strike > 2 stack Project = 5 stack Breach > Clairvoyant Strike

The misleading part of that priority system though is how important Clairvoyant strike is for
A) Building breach stacks
B) Building Project Stacks
C) Activating Expose Weakness

**Gorodetski** · 09-06-2011, 12:58 PM

cool, sounds like a good list, and tbh it doesn't mislead as to how important CS is, as as you've said you NEED CS to get all those other things, so without it you'll never HAVE an EW SS, or a fully stacked Project/Breach, that's the thing about prio lists, you'll often find it's the things closer to the bottom that get used the most Tongue

as you need to use them to activate the things higher up the prio list.

Grim · 09-06-2011, 10:20 PM

Dang it - looks like I'm gonna have to do some serious back-pedalling.

Now granted the prio system is still correct, but the rotation that I had modeled is not.

There are 2 major items I missed, one cause I brain farted, the other because even though I am on beta, I was using a talent description on a site where the tooltip was incomplete.

1) Even though I knew breach stacks have an internal cooldown, I was still allowing CS to grant 2 stacks because there was just that disconnect in my brain between the part that knew of the lockout and the part that was saying - CS is so awesome for everything!!!

2) The description I was reading for infiltration tactics left out the 10 second lockout on expose weakness... I caught it last night as EW just didn't have the uptime I was expecting. (Last night I finally started getting the first set of project stacks so I am finally getting into the prio system instead of facerolling)

As such, it seems that to maximize the # of worthwhile attacks in between shadow strikes, it is probably better to use breach on cooldown - AND add a second sabre strike while you are building up stacks and waiting for abilities to come off cooldown.

Sorry for the back-and-forth on this.

G_

**Gorodetski** · 09-07-2011, 12:54 AM

np dude, beta is beta Tongue

thanks for the update, so are we thinking now that Breach should be dropped on CD, every CD, regardless of stacks? Also.. what exactly IS Saber Strike Tongue

not been able to find it on any of the lists, it might be it's a Shadow move that has a different name for Assassins, so if you give me a description, I can check it against the Assassin moves, and find it's mirror.

**Alratan** · 09-07-2011, 01:00 AM

Saber Strike is an instant attack dealing weapon damage, with no cooldown other than GCD and no force cost. It's a basic attack.

**Piree** · 09-07-2011, 01:03 AM

(09-07-2011 12:54 AM)Gorodetski Wrote: np dude, beta is beta thanks for the update, so are we thinking now that Breach should be dropped on CD, every CD, regardless of stacks? Also.. what exactly IS Saber Strike not been able to find it on any of the lists, it might be it's a Shadow move that has a different name for Assassins, so if you give me a description, I can check it against the Assassin moves, and find it's mirror.

Saber Strike is the standard attack that uses no force.

@Grim, that was a big brainfart Smile

Also, what tooltip is incorrect? It does say 10sec cd on the talent calculator I'm using.

Grim · 09-07-2011, 02:14 AM

(09-07-2011 01:03 AM)Piree Wrote:
(09-07-2011 12:54 AM)Gorodetski Wrote: np dude, beta is beta thanks for the update, so are we thinking now that Breach should be dropped on CD, every CD, regardless of stacks? Also.. what exactly IS Saber Strike not been able to find it on any of the lists, it might be it's a Shadow move that has a different name for Assassins, so if you give me a description, I can check it against the Assassin moves, and find it's mirror.

Saber Strike is the standard attack that uses no force.

@Grim, that was a big brainfart
Also, what tooltip is incorrect? It does say 10sec cd on the talent calculator I'm using.

It wasn't any of the ones on this site, I had just done a google search for consular expose weakness and the page I got didn't have it.

As stated, saber strike is a standard attack that has no force cost - but the big thing to note is that it does 3 attacks over the course of the GCD with each having an a chance to activate expose weakness. And as some of the hits seemed lower than others, it looks like each of the hits has an independent chance to miss (same with Double Strike and I am going to guess that it will also be true of Clairvoyant Strike - each hit has an independent hit/crit chance).