Is there a Compendium on Shadow/Sin Madness DPS?

[anex]

(02-09-2012 04:13 PM)AmonAmarth Wrote:  

(02-04-2012 11:22 PM)AmonAmarth Wrote:  Anyway, we run EV on Wednesday and we have 2 shadows in equivalent gear so it will be interesting to see how well the 31 balance/madness compares to my 31 infiltration/deception spec.

Well the run is done and I beat him by about a half a second although I have a few rakata pieces and he is only in columi. So I would say that 31 infiltration/deception does respectable dps in comparison to 31 balance/madness. Especially because when we were both hybrid madness I would come out a split second behind him.

As far as our specs, I would say we shine in different areas. My aoe is better (I can sustain whirling blow for a decent amount of time if needed) and my burst is better for fights like Soa with the mindtraps and shield or the 3rd boss in Karaggas.

However, I believe his spec is better for bosses like Gharj where one must run out. My dps essentially stops but his dots keep on ticking. As long as we are running with 2 shadows, I think our best bet is for one of us to go balance/madness and the other to go infiltration/deception.

I do miss force in balance though and I think dots are great for pvp (although i love finishing people off with some huge hits). Anyway, cheers. Happy to answer any questions about my gear, rotation etc, but I am by no means an expert and I wouldn't say this is conclusive for anyone but myself.

I would be interested in seeing some of your rotation details. I'm relatively new to infiltration and I'm looking to solidify my output.

currently Im going at it as a priority system as follows.

1. Spinning Strike (Target at 30% health or less)
2. Shadow Strike (Find Weakness)
3. Force Breach (every CD)
4. Project (2x Circling Shadows)
5. Clairvoyant Strike or Double Strike
6. Saber Strike (Conserving Force)

the problem is I'm not too sure on when I should start worrying about force levels i generally go until I'm about out and that's not good but I'm still only level 41 so room to improve.

[Lolth]

(02-09-2012 04:13 PM)AmonAmarth Wrote:  Well the run is done and I beat him by about a half a second although I have a few rakata pieces and he is only in columi. So I would say that 31 infiltration/deception does respectable dps in comparison to 31 balance/madness. Especially because when we were both hybrid madness I would come out a split second behind him.

As far as our specs, I would say we shine in different areas. My aoe is better (I can sustain whirling blow for a decent amount of time if needed) and my burst is better for fights like Soa with the mindtraps and shield or the 3rd boss in Karaggas.

However, I believe his spec is better for bosses like Gharj where one must run out. My dps essentially stops but his dots keep on ticking. As long as we are running with 2 shadows, I think our best bet is for one of us to go balance/madness and the other to go infiltration/deception.

I do miss force in balance though and I think dots are great for pvp (although i love finishing people off with some huge hits). Anyway, cheers. Happy to answer any questions about my gear, rotation etc, but I am by no means an expert and I wouldn't say this is conclusive for anyone but myself.

Don't forget dec/balance can't use maul either on council so factor that in i say it pull ahead of dot spec+P also anyone who puts dots on target eats your deathmarks making your force very low as that spec i tried itmyself in raid.

[Bored]

(02-10-2012 07:40 AM)Lolth Wrote:  Don't forget dec/balance can't use maul either on council so factor that in i say it pull ahead of dot spec+P also anyone who puts dots on target eats your deathmarks making your force very low as that spec i tried itmyself in raid.

Can we please kill this rumour once and for all, it's not the first time I've seen this bit of misinformation, and it really is bugging me. Other dots do consume your Deathmarks, but they still restore YOUR force, so there's no force loss at all at work here. The only major difference is that you'll be getting all that force back near instant, instead of gradually.

[Lackies]

(02-10-2012 08:33 AM)Lolth Wrote:  Well i just tried it last night i felt so OOF more so then dec spec just felt like i wasnt getting them and i read that so i thought it was true sir sorry, Just felt OOOOOF!

The problem is because shock costs so much force.
Assume you get 480 force per minute and for the sake of this model we'll just say Death Field costs 5 force.

Assume you need 4 Discharge , 4 Creeping Terror, 4 death fields and 4 Mauls ( but probably 5) in your rotation. so that's 280 force used. before we even get into shock/thrash. With Shock costing 39 force and theoretically wanting to use it 6 times a minute. That's an additional 234 force per minute.
In short a Madness build is out of force straight out the gate. but out 2 pc generates some force so lets get a little more in depth.

so that's 26 GCDs. Leaving 14 for Raze and Saber Strike. Assume 1 raze proc every 10 seconds and that leaves 8 GCDs max for saber strike. assuming no misses on all of those hits thats an additional 24 force.

And you know whats funny? the build is STILL force negative. You'd have 504 force regenerated and 514 spent in a minute. And this is being very generous to saber strike and death field's regen, not to mention the fact that the regen and can be very busty and thus require filler simply to avoid 100 force.

Long story short.,,, Don't even ATTEMPT to keep UK up fulltime. I don't know what the optimal rotation is for Madness, but I can tell you doing shock right before a bunch of DoT Refreshing is probably inefficient... TBH it may be best to simply not shock at all since 4pc + thrash is solid dmg and you're probably losing dmg if you don't use 4-5 gcds on melee attacks during UEK's uptime. But that's for someone smarter than me to determine, all I can say is full madness is complicated as hell and its talents reduce the effectiveness of its other talents.

There's a reason I play Dark/madness... its easy and it makes frickin sense. I heartily recommend 18/23 or 18/1/22 to people whose hybrid madness builds got messed up in the patch. Perhaps its not quite as potent on jarg and Sorno, but at least its easy to play well and you have lots of "fluff" points to put where you like.
The deathfield buff should beat out proc'd maul on a single target due to the low chance to proc but its an option for those who basically never want to use deathfield except as a 30 yard range attack.

[AmonAmarth]

(02-10-2012 03:02 AM)anex Wrote:  the problem is I'm not too sure on when I should start worrying about force levels i generally go until I'm about out and that's not good but I'm still only level 41 so room to improve.

That is exactly my rotation as well. Don't forget about force potency, battle readiness and your relics - these are very important for maximizing dps as well.

I pop blackout when i'm at approximately 33% force left but i have no idea when is ideal - this could probably be calculated by someone with better math skills than me. I feel that 33% is a bit early, but sooner is better than later so you can use it again in the fight. Keep in mind, if you use it too soon you have too much force.

I pop blackout first because I like having force cloak just in case i need to drop aggro early in the fight, but if I get back down to 10-20% force, I hit force cloak. Then I just pop them whenever they are up again.

---

(02-10-2012 07:40 AM)Lolth Wrote:  Don't forget dec/balance can't use maul either on council so factor that in i say it pull ahead of dot spec+P also anyone who puts dots on target eats your deathmarks making your force very low as that spec i tried itmyself in raid.

I agree, but I don't believe dec/inf pulls ahead of mad/bal. If anything they are equal with one pulling ahead of the other depending on the mechanics of the fight.

The long and short of it is, try both, play the one that is more fun for you

[Alvis]

(02-10-2012 08:33 AM)Lolth Wrote:  The problem is because shock costs so much force.
Assume you get 480 force per minute and for the sake of this model we'll just say Death Field costs 5 force.

Assume you need 4 Discharge , 4 Creeping Terror, 4 death fields and 4 Mauls ( but probably 5) in your rotation. so that's 280 force used. before we even get into shock/thrash. With Shock costing 39 force and theoretically wanting to use it 6 times a minute. That's an additional 234 force per minute.
In short a Madness build is out of force straight out the gate. but out 2 pc generates some force so lets get a little more in depth.
{...}

Well, this would be true if you had to use it every 10s but you have to use it every 20s to maintain the buff. All the rest of the calculation is wrong obviously. You do have a bit more than 100 force a min to use on double strike with your model though which is more than enough.

Personally, I don't PvE much (just an Op once a while) but madness rotation is far from being that difficult (surely more than kinetic or infiltration though).
You have three debuffs/DoTs that you want to refresh (2 of them having the same duration), two procs and one ability you want to use every possible CD with a easy to manage ressource system (and 2 buffs).

Lethality ops are way more difficult for instance.


Edit: Fixed your tags so your post actually shows up ~Kor

[pudge]

With my experience the big reason pure specs are superior to 'hybrids' is their versatility. A lot of this theorycrafting assumes that you can keep up a solid rotation involving a nearly set amount of thrash/mauls/saber strikes thus force regen talents (Blood of Sith) limit the use of Saber Strike and increases dps. In theory, without any variables, a Darkness/Madness hybrid competes with pure specs single target damage output, and may even pull ahead of them, but offers little versatility. Raids, in particular, have bosses with set mechanics. Boss mechanics may require you to switch targets (adds, pylons, ect), Avoid AoE or simply even wait for a target to dps (immunity, phase change, ect). These mechanics often put you at range of the target (whether it be boss or not) and THIS is when Creeping Terror and a pure Madness build becomes useful and a Darkness/Madness Hybrid, with Blood of Sith, is hindered severely.

Pure Madness has 30% more critical damage on your dots when you can't melee with 2 or possibly 3, for a short period, ticking along with 30% increased critical Death Field, and in situations, although not exclusive to Madness, Shock and Force Lightning. As 7/3/31 (or other variations of -/-/31 madness) the need to Saber Strike is greatly reduced depending on the mechanics of the encounter. For instance, the only encounter where I consistently Saber Strike (once every 5-6 GCDs) with a pure Madness spec is Karagga.

A hybrid build based around Blood of Sith can have 1 (possibly 2 for a short time) dots ticking at 30% less critical damage (20% less damage 10 ticks per 15 seconds), Death Field, Shock and in some situations Force Lightning.

Alternatively a Deception build can Discharge and Shock with increased damage outputs via talents at mid range but offers no damage benefits at longer range. The greatest strength of Deception is burst. One can actually choose when force regen is needed and shock and discharge are buffed exponentially in the Deception tree. Although it should not be by any means a deciding factor to spec Deception, attacking 4+ targets with Lacerate does a ton of damage (especially with Overcharge Saber active) and you can virtually spam it for a good 15 seconds.

All of this being said, I believe Madness offers the greatest versatility in the current raiding environments especially now that Discharge has no CD.


A few simple rules I try to follow when playing Madness:

Starting a fight I Usually begin with Force Speed while we pull if the boss has proximity aggro. I Creeping Terror while closing distance, and then Discharge. I then use Death Field and Maul or Thrash depending on duplicity procs until I get a Raze proc (usually takes 1-2 GCDs) and then Crushing Darkness. This is when you can Shock for UK. I continue with Maul/Thrash only stopping to refresh discharge and Crushing Darkness with Raze procs.

Priority should be as follows:

-Discharge (when dot is off)
-Death Field (with Raze proc)
-Crushing Darkness (Raze)
-Shock (For UK buff)
-Assassinate (below 30%)
-Maul
-Thrash (to get Raze proc)
-Creeping Terror
-Thrash
-Saber Strike (below 20 force)
-Shock (at ranged)
-Force Lightning (at ranged, very situational)

-If you get a Raze proc and Death Field is within 5 seconds of coming back up, hold out until you use Death Field to Crushing Darkness.
-If the fight has predictable mechanics save refreshing UK for when you need to run out of melee range. This is also a good opportunity to Creeping Terror.
-Non-critical Creeping Terror ticks will typically do only a little less damage than 2 CRITICAL Thrash hits (1 gcd), but is still the weakest dot, I like to reapply this dot not exactly when it falls off but wait for a Raze proc/Crushing Darkness and then reapply.
-Use Adrenal/Relic/Overcharge Saber and Recklessness before Death Field/Raze. Depending on the fight save for obvious burst phase if you need to, otherwise typically best used early.


Cpt. obvious Tips:

-No point reapplying dots on a Boss that's seconds away from dying.
-Don't reapply Discharge too early
-Overload is not used for AoE dps
-Tumult weak/strong adds when they are stunned (Shock+Tumult is a great combo on weaks)
-Don't use Force Lightning in a DPS rotation unless at range, avoiding an AoE mechanic with nothing else to use.


Notes:

-Priority is not the same as rotation. You obviously need to melee before you get a Raze proc.
-I follow a stat priority of WP>Crit>Power>Acc ≤ 100% Melee>Surge, though I'm not certain of these values completely. I would still go crit/surge over power/accuracy for Madness.

[AmonAmarth]

(02-16-2012 03:49 AM)pudge Wrote:  All of this being said, I believe Madness offers the greatest versatility in the current raiding environments especially now that Discharge has no CD.
[.... removed text.....-Amon]
-I follow a stat priority of WP>Crit>Power>Acc ≤ 100% Melee>Surge, though I'm not certain of these values completely. I would still go crit/surge over power/accuracy for Madness.

Having raided as both balance/madness and infiltration/deception, you might be right because balance/madness definitely does better from ranged. However, on fights like Soa where you need burst (mindtraps/shield down), or G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator where the boss is only able to be damaged for a short period of time, I prefer the burst of infiltration/deception. A bit more about my un-scientific experiment in this post if you are interested.

On the stat priority: I would go crit/surge/power over accuracy for infiltration/deception as well. I'm not convinced we need any accuracy, but that thread is here.

[pudge]

Quote:Having raided as both balance/madness and infiltration/deception, you might be right because balance/madness definitely does better from ranged. However, on fights like Soa where you need burst (mindtraps/shield down), or G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator where the boss is only able to be damaged for a short period of time, I prefer the burst of infiltration/deception. A bit more about my un-scientific experiment in this post if you are interested.

On the stat priority: I would go crit/surge/power over accuracy for infiltration/deception as well. I'm not convinced we need any accuracy, but that thread is here.

I agree with you. Madness does have pretty good burst compared to other class specs though, even if Deception is far superior in that regard.

As for accuracy goes, I really don't know.

[mero]

playin maddness 'sin what enhancements and mods are ppl stacking. i had crit/surge then i switched to power/surge.