Two Qs on Secondary Stats for PvP Sorcerers

[Uninformed]

So I know there is a lot of information out there but I thought it might be helpful to put in one place. Here are a few of the questions that those in the know might be able to answer for us newbies.

1. Assuming a Lightning/Madness Hybrid Build (0/23/18), which secondary stat would you shoot for beyond Crit? Surge or Alacrity seems the way to go.

2. I understand Power is not really worth stacking. At what Rating does Surge or Alacrity begin to plateau?

[Ramrok]

i would go alacrity as ur secondary stat because it is consistent, whereas surge only comes beneficial on a crit... not to mention with that hybrid build, your main skill are castable and ur dots are secondary making alacrity more important to get your casts off quicker so you dont sit long to cast.

[Lord_Indomitus]

(01-06-2012 02:13 AM)Uninformed Wrote:  2. I understand Power is not really worth stacking. At what Rating does Surge or Alacrity begin to plateau?

Why? Assuming a Madness speced Sorcerer, what would you go for?

[Kaedis]

Point-for-point, Power gives more raw damage than crit, surge, or alacrity at most gear levels. The only reason to not stack it is if you need to specifically focus on the benefits of another stat. For example, the additional burst potential from high crit/surge, or the reduced turreting and lockout window from Alacrity.

[Ramrok]

Power is better for healers, or PVP specs benefitting from Concealment as power is a consistent boost and more reliable than crit when it comes to casting. However Crit is more important then Power for dps specs, and primarily madness, due to not only burst but also the talents that proc on crits that both madness and lightning live off. Surge is mainly only good for madness as lightning builds or lightning hybrids dont get that many crits, which is why they need that alacrity to pump out more damage quicker. However i also like alacrity on madness because it makes the dots tick faster, allowing me to reuse my instant dots much sooner and channeling force lightning quicker to get the wrath proc sooner to be able to use another instant cast.

[Kaedis]

Quote:Power is better for healers, or PVP specs benefitting from Concealment as power is a consistent boost and more reliable than crit when it comes to casting. However Crit is more important then Power for dps specs, and primarily madness, due to not only burst but also the talents that proc on crits that both madness and lightning live off. Surge is mainly only good for madness as lightning builds or lightning hybrids dont get that many crits, which is why they need that alacrity to pump out more damage quicker. However i also like alacrity on madness because it makes the dots tick faster, allowing me to reuse my instant dots much sooner and channeling force lightning quicker to get the wrath proc sooner to be able to use another instant cast.

This is actually fairly significantly wrong. Firstly, the value of Power versus other stats is heavily dependent on the values of those other stats. At low crit rating values, for example, crit significantly overtakes power, particularly for healers (who only gain ~70% of the benefit dpsers do from Power).

For DPS, in most gear sets, Power starts superior to the other stats and grows from there (as the others taper off in benefit due to DR).

Surge is arguably better for Lightning, as Thundering Blast auto-crits, and Lightning has the same crit-amplifying talent Lightning Barrage that the Madness build does. If Madness does not have Lightning Barrage, the value for crit tanks significantly.

Alacrity has zero effect on DoT tick timers. The only thing it affects in Madness is Force Lightning channel time.

Side note: channeling FL faster to get quicker Wrath procs isn't really a benefit. The only things you can use it on are Chain Lightning and Crushing Darkness. CD has a cooldown, as does CL, and casting CL more often just means you go out-of-force that much quicker. In addition, there's a solid amount of evidence at this point that using Wrath procs on anything but CD is actually a dps loss. LS is lower DPCT than FL, even with the +20% boost from Wrath, and CL's poor force efficiency means it's higher sustained dps to skip it in most situations.

[Uninformed]

Kor, I am a bit confused now. So stack crit then power then surge with the lightning hybrid build we've discussed elsewhere?

[Ramrok]

(01-08-2012 01:17 AM)Kor Wrote:  

Quote:Power is better for healers, or PVP specs benefitting from Concealment as power is a consistent boost and more reliable than crit when it comes to casting. However Crit is more important then Power for dps specs, and primarily madness, due to not only burst but also the talents that proc on crits that both madness and lightning live off. Surge is mainly only good for madness as lightning builds or lightning hybrids dont get that many crits, which is why they need that alacrity to pump out more damage quicker. However i also like alacrity on madness because it makes the dots tick faster, allowing me to reuse my instant dots much sooner and channeling force lightning quicker to get the wrath proc sooner to be able to use another instant cast.

This is actually fairly significantly wrong. Firstly, the value of Power versus other stats is heavily dependent on the values of those other stats. At low crit rating values, for example, crit significantly overtakes power, particularly for healers (who only gain ~70% of the benefit dpsers do from Power).

For DPS, in most gear sets, Power starts superior to the other stats and grows from there (as the others taper off in benefit due to DR).

Surge is arguably better for Lightning, as Thundering Blast auto-crits, and Lightning has the same crit-amplifying talent Lightning Barrage that the Madness build does. If Madness does not have Lightning Barrage, the value for crit tanks significantly.

Alacrity has zero effect on DoT tick timers. The only thing it affects in Madness is Force Lightning channel time.

Side note: channeling FL faster to get quicker Wrath procs isn't really a benefit. The only things you can use it on are Chain Lightning and Crushing Darkness. CD has a cooldown, as does CL, and casting CL more often just means you go out-of-force that much quicker. In addition, there's a solid amount of evidence at this point that using Wrath procs on anything but CD is actually a dps loss. LS is lower DPCT than FL, even with the +20% boost from Wrath, and CL's poor force efficiency means it's higher sustained dps to skip it in most situations.

if im not mistaken, in the game mechanics section, the thread about basics it said alacrity does reduce tick intervals and overall duration. and about surge, i was reffering it to his 23/18 build which doesnt have TB and since his main skills are castable (namely lightning strike) and the focus of that hybrid looks to be high burst i would say alacrity would be better than power. i would think he should go crit then alacrity then power/surge.

[Kaedis]

Quote:the thread about basics it said alacrity does reduce tick intervals and overall duration

Recent testing (within the last week or so) in that section has shown it does not, unless I've missed something even more recent than that.

Quote:i would say alacrity would be better than power. i would think he should go crit then alacrity then power/surge.

"Would think's" and "would say's", particularly when just based on intuitive guesswork, aren't particularly valuable around here. Surge scales extremely fast compared to other stats, and alacrity very slowly. In addition, every bit of scaling testing I've done has shown that Power nearly always beats out the other 3 stats, particularly if you have at least 100 or so rating in each.

[Ramrok]

Quote:i would say alacrity would be better than power. i would think he should go crit then alacrity then power/surge.

"Would think's" and "would say's", particularly when just based on intuitive guesswork, aren't particularly valuable around here. Surge scales extremely fast compared to other stats, and alacrity very slowly. In addition, every bit of scaling testing I've done has shown that Power nearly always beats out the other 3 stats, particularly if you have at least 100 or so rating in each.
[/quote]

so regardless of which dps build u go as sorc ur saying power will be a better stat for any build?