Sorcerer DPS BIS discussion

[hatterson]

Done. Unless I've messed up a secondary piece, I think they should be set now.

[Rukk]

Quick question,

I have been reading forever and I have never been able to figure out alacrity. With the exception of telekentic I am seeing what seems like hard Alacrity values for Madness and hybrid. Are these generated based on simC runs or is there some inherent philosophy that I am missing?

thanks,

[Kaedis]

Pretty much SimC numbers. The Alacrity numbers tend to be lower for Hybrid, and even lower for Madness, due to the lower percentage of damage affected by the stat, but otherwise nothing is set in stone. It's all based around a balancing act between Surge and Alacrity (which is indirectly affected by the balance between Power and Crit).

[hatterson]

Basically how I calculated the numbers was to start with a fairly raw campaign set and make the obvious adjusments (ensuring resolve augments and resolve armoring all around, no lettered mods, etc.) and then ran a long sim (100k iterations, calculate steps on all 5 major stats) and see what stats had the highest weight.

Then it's just stepping through and adjusting the stats until they're as close to in balance as possible. It takes a while, but I generally do it on my spare laptop that has nothing else running so I just kinda start it up and check in every so often.

[DonJuansen]

I have a question concerning the common knowledge that Willpower is a static 10% better than Power.

Through reading the formulae and some posts i gather the following:

Every point of Willpower adds 0.2 bonus damage and 0.14 bonus healing.
Every point of Power adds 0.23 bonus damage and 0.17 bonus healing.
Basically, Power provides 3.6% more damage bonus and 9.4% more healing bonus per point than Willpower.

Willpower also increases Force Critical chance, with a separate diminishing returns curve much lower and also much shallower in benefit-per-point fall-off than crit rating. The more crit % comes from Willpower, the more room you have to swap around power for crit mods.

My question is how do you arrive at a static 10% better than Power? Did my search miss the post that explains it?

[hatterson]

(07-10-2012 05:20 PM)DonJuansen Wrote:  I have a question concerning the common knowledge that Willpower is a static 10% better than Power.

Through reading the formulae and some posts i gather the following:

Every point of Willpower adds 0.2 bonus damage and 0.14 bonus healing.
Every point of Power adds 0.23 bonus damage and 0.17 bonus healing.
Basically, Power provides 3.6% more damage bonus and 9.4% more healing bonus per point than Willpower.

Willpower also increases Force Critical chance, with a separate diminishing returns curve much lower and also much shallower in benefit-per-point fall-off than crit rating. The more crit % comes from Willpower, the more room you have to swap around power for crit mods.

My question is how do you arrive at a static 10% better than Power? Did my search miss the post that explains it?

This post has some math in it, some is incorrect (multiplicative stacking instead of additive) and Kaedis corrected it in the next post down, but the basic gist is the same.

You can't get an exact percentage without knowing specific gear, but the number is surprisingly insulated against gear changes. It takes an absurd amount of willpower (I believe Kaedis said 9000) for power to eclipse willpower.

[Kaedis]

Quote:The more crit % comes from Willpower, the more room you have to swap around power for crit mods.

This part, by the way, is false. The value of crit rating is based almost entirely on how much crit rating you already have, not on what your current crit chance is. This is an exceedingly common misconception, most likely instigated by the very common recommendations on the official forums to keep your crit chance near X%. This is, however, inaccurate. You want to keep your Crit Rating to Power ratio in the right spot (determined by your gear level and spec). What your final crit chance ends up being is largely superfluous (except for healers wishing to guarantee Recklessness crits).

Basically, adding more Willpower, thought it does increase your crit chance, doesn't really have much of an effect on how much crit rating you want.

On a side note, the 10% rule only really applies for Hybrid. Both Madness and Lightning are showing closer to a 15% advantage toward Willpower.

[qwerty]

(07-06-2012 10:09 AM)hatterson Wrote:  Final results:

Setup: Lightning
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 1033 power, 342 alacrity, 123 crit, 228 surge
DPS: 1853.1

Setup: Madness
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 838 power, 228 alacrty, 205 crit, 342 surge
DPS: 1781.8

Setup: Hybrid
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 759 power, 285 alacrity, 287 crit, 285 surge
DPS: 1772.4

The Lightning setup feels off having so much Alacrity, but that's what the sims say *shrug*

Let me know if someone can find an issue in what I've done

From what I'm seeing here, the best spec to be using is Lightning (1853.1) followed by Madness (1781.8) followed by Hybrid (1772.4) due to the significant difference in dps output.

Am I understanding this correctly? Should I change from being a BiS Hybrid (1772.4) to a BiS Lightning (1853.1)? I already have all the required mods/enhancements to make the change, however I would like to double check my understanding before making this change.

Thanks in advance.

[Korrig]

(07-12-2012 01:17 AM)qwerty Wrote:  

(07-06-2012 10:09 AM)hatterson Wrote:  Final results:

Setup: Lightning
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 1033 power, 342 alacrity, 123 crit, 228 surge
DPS: 1853.1

Setup: Madness
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 838 power, 228 alacrty, 205 crit, 342 surge
DPS: 1781.8

Setup: Hybrid
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 759 power, 285 alacrity, 287 crit, 285 surge
DPS: 1772.4

The Lightning setup feels off having so much Alacrity, but that's what the sims say *shrug*

Let me know if someone can find an issue in what I've done

From what I'm seeing here, the best spec to be using is Lightning (1853.1) followed by Madness (1781.8) followed by Hybrid (1772.4) due to the significant difference in dps output.

Am I understanding this correctly? Should I change from being a BiS Hybrid (1772.4) to a BiS Lightning (1853.1)? I already have all the required mods/enhancements to make the change, however I would like to double check my understanding before making this change.

Thanks in advance.

In a fight with 100% up-time to turret, yes you're understanding correctly. Lightning requires much more awareness (and planning ahead) to sustain those numbers in heavier movement encounters than the other two. If you've got the creds to swap all the item mods and you prefer the lightning playstyle then I'd say go for it. I personally have my gear close to optimized for madness and like the flexibility during movement, so I don't think the switch would be worth it for me.

[whyzerman]

(07-06-2012 10:09 AM)hatterson Wrote:  Final results:

Setup: Lightning
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 1033 power, 342 alacrity, 123 crit, 228 surge

Final weights: Willpower=.4384, Power=.3565, Crit=.3908, Alacrity=.3300, Surge=.2490
DPS: 1853.1

Setup: Madness
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 838 power, 228 alacrty, 205 crit, 342 surge

Final Weights: Willpower=.4021, Power=.3544, Crit=.3682, Alacrity=.1214, Surge=.1130
DPS: 1781.8


Setup: Hybrid
Stats [Pre-Stim]: 2129 Willpower, 759 power, 285 alacrity, 287 crit, 285 surge

Final Weights: Willpower=.4018, Power=.3611, Crit=.3443, Alacrity=.1824, Surge=.1600
DPS: 1772.4

The Lightning setup feels off having so much Alacrity, but that's what the sims say *shrug*

Let me know if someone can find an issue in what I've done

Are these numbers based on a static (Patchwerk) type fight? I only ask because most of the fights in EC require a lot of target swapping and movement. With the only 2 cast times I have as Madness being Force Lightning and Crushing Darkness, it would seem that Madness would pull ahead of Lightning/Hybrid in this instance.

Also in the madness spec, you give up a 6% damage boost to crushing darkness for 100 more force and 3 seconds on affliction. Forgive me if this has already been asked, but wouldn't the 6% damage boost to crushing darkness be a bigger increase in DPS overall over an additional tick on Affliction (assuming you can maintain a 100% uptime on affliction at 18 seconds)? Also for suitabilities sake (as well as the fact that you should only be using shock when there is no other alternative), I personally think Sith Defiance (2% less damage taken) would be better then an additional 30% chance at a 2nd 50% damage shock (think firebrand/stormcaller where you are taking the Double Destruction or are tanking an add in the shield, or you get nailed with a rail shot on Kephess)