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Posts posted by Mav

    Combating TOR fatigue

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    I haven't really played the game... for the sake of the game, in a really long time. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but basically I play cause there are people that I like playing with and that's really all that keeps it going for me atm.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted · Edited by Mav

    I guess I'm supposed to answer this one...

     

    As a Consular, Willpower is your mainstat, it affects your crit rate and your bonus damage. That being said when playing a tank yes you're going to typically choose armoring mods that are higher in Endurance than in Mainstat. At later levels you also have secondary tanking stats to worry about though, Defense and Absorb. At end-game, typically stacking Endurance over your mitigation stats (Defense/Absorb) is inadvisable.

     

    Shadow Tanks have tools to excel at both tanking single boss enemies, as well as packs of multiple smaller enemies. That being said, of the three tanking advanced classes, Guardian, Vanguard, and Shadow, by selecting to play a Shadow Tank, you've decided to pick the most challenging tank to excel at. As far as getting destroyed during a H4 mission, were you trying to do it solo, cause that'd be a bad idea. However, tanking at lower levels in general is pretty ineffective. While that is true for all the tank classes it is especially true for Shadow Tanks, you wear light armor and get shredded easily early on and you don't get some of your best tanking abilities until your upper 30's or lower 40's in levels.

     

    Honestly, I highly recommend that you level as DPS and learn to Tank when you level cap. Leveling just takes much longer when you're leveling as a Tank and especially with Shadows you don't feel very tanky until much later in the levels.

     

    Anyway, I wrote a guide for Shadow Tanks that is a few months old, but should provide enough of the basics... http://www.thewalkingcarpets.com/forum/m/3065305/viewthread/5383418-shadow-tanking-primer

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    So when I hit C on my keyboard and my character screen comes up under Acc I want it to say 100% without hovering my mouse over it to see the bonus acc no matter what, and if I have full affection with my comp and anything higher is basically better? But shouldn't worry about putting points into it if it is over 110?

     

    If I am reading this correctly.

     

    Also, finally finished 2 lvl 55 HMFP's as a healer on my Sorc. Discovered my Alacrity of all things isn't where it needs to be. But we did Hammerstation and Mando Raiders. Hammer was the first one and the tank died on the first boss because my purge couldn't cooldown fast enough basically. But I did get him back up quickly and we didn't wipe. The tank we had was great as I hardly had to even touch the 2 dps with us with heals at all..

    Well it doesn't really matter how updated his guide is, it's pretty minimal as is and he hasn't even touched his Commando since leveling it. The point is get accuracy to 100/110, then go Surge. So there is no confusion ever again and so I don't have to answer this ever again :p I made a picture. Also as an FYI to reach that 100/110 on my Gunslinger takes ~400 points in Accuracy, leaving ~300 left to spend on Surge or Alacrity, Alacrity being useless, so again I have no idea where this 600 points in Surge comes from.

     

    kV0lpJs.jpg

     

    Which takes me to my next point, the tank dying because you couldn't Purge fast enough in Hammer Station is not the fault of Alacrity. In fact Alacrity doesn't even affect the cooldown of abilities (unless they have no cooldown because Alacrity affects the GCD). You're mis-timing your Purge, you should only have to purge twice, at 5 stacks of that mining laser debuff each time and you should be healing in-between.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    So, when you guys say 110% accuracy do you mean 100% and it winds up being 110% with your bonuses? Or is it 110% and 110%+ with the bonuses? Just curious cause I have almost 100% on my RDPS and a little over 100% on my Sent.

     

    Another I forgot about earlier, the Gunnery commando guide says (done by Jogelav sp?) say 110% accuracy and 600 surge. Not sure how I am susposed to do this. Is this with highest rated gear? I have close to 100 maybe 99.89% or something acc but only 300 surge. No crit rest power like 952 power I think. My ear and implants have accuracy and power and then I used accuracy enhancements to get that high but there doesn't seem to be enough to get surge that high. Just wondering

     

    Also just a gripe why can't you sell the Makeb rep items for credits but you can all the other rep items for Section X, Voss and others for credits?

     

    1. There are 2 types of Accuracy, Melee/Ranged and Force/Tech, the base accuracy for Melee/Ranged attacks is 90% and the base accuracy for Force/Tech is 100%. Certain attacks fall under each category, for example in terms of a Commando, Full Auto is a Ranged Attack, and Demolition Round is a Tech attack. Generally speaking most DPS classes will be able to use talent points in a skill tree to get +3% accuracy, you will get +1% accuracy from having max affection with your rDPS companion (I think), so what you are trying to obtain with your gear is +6% accuracy. That will bring your total to +10% accuracy from talents/gear, add that to you base accuracy of 90% and 100% and that is where you are seeing the goals of being 100% and 110%.

     

    2. I don't think Jolg's Commando guide is up-to-date/usable right now, I don't think it was changed with patch 2.0. In the patch in addition to the level cap being increased to 55, the stat weight formulae for the secondary stats were adjusted to account for the greater number of available stat points in upcoming gear tiers. So basically where before maybe you could get to 100% accuracy and then have 600 points left to stick into Surge, that's not the case anymore as now it takes more points to reach 100% in accuracy leaving less points available for Surge. To be honest I'm not sure where he pulled the number 600 from anyway as I don't think that was true prior to patch 2.0 regardless. In reality how much Surge you have doesn't matter, your goal should be to get to 100% accuracy and then all from that point on just begin to stack Surge.

     

    3. I don't know why Makeb rep tokens aren't sellable, they're eating up my inventory space!

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    So first of all as far as Sniper vs. Gunslinger and 1 Gun vs. 2 Guns or 1 Shot vs. Multiple shots, don't let the animations confuse you. The animations are there to be pretty and are essentially just for show, under the hood the combat is still all dice rolls. That being said there is a slight difference, if you had 2 identically geared characters 1 being a Sniper and 1 being a Gunslinger you'd notice their base damages differ even though being identically geared.

     

    A Sniper's base damage may read 1700-2000

     

    While a Gunny may have Primary: 1350-1500; Secondary 350-500

     

    So while technically yes a Gunslinger has both his primary and his secondary weapon dealing damage, it takes both the primary and offhand weapon to total the same damage as the single sniper rifle. Now, the offhand of the Gunslinger has a different accuracy, so yes there will be very marginal differences, but basically in practice the end result is that if both classes are identically geared, then Sniper=Gunslinger.

     

    As to the argument that Gunslingers have 2 sources of damage so are less dependent on crits, again over a given period of time identically geared Snipers and Slingers will produce identical crit rates so it wont matter.

     

    Now going specifically over the argument of Power vs. Crit after patch 2.0, its true that after initial testing most theory crafters were saying, 0 Crit All Power. As more and more practical parses come through though, it became evident that gearing really does depend on what spec or skill tree you choose. Using the Sniper/Slinger as an example, the Marksman/Sharpshooter tree does not have a lot of talents that boost Crit/Surge on certain abilities so those trees benefit more from a Power build, while the Engineering/Saboteur and Lethality/Dirty Fighting trees have a lot of talents with increased Surge and Crit percentages and so they actually parse higher when they sacrifice some Power for Crit in their gear. Keep in mind though that the differences rarely exceed more than 50 DPS and when you're talking about dealing 2650 DPS vs. 2600 DPS it isn't going to be a life or death outcome.

     

    As to the question about lettered vs. unlettered mods there are a couple formulae you'll want to take into account. Basically every 1 point in Mainstat will give you +0.2 Bonus Damage and a very small amount of Crit%; and every 1 point in Power will give you +0.24 Bonus Damage.

     

    So lets look at the unlettered Artful Mod 31

     

    69 Cunning * 1.09 (+9% from skill tree) = 75.21 * .2 Bonus Damage = 15.042

    57 Power * .24 Bonus Damage = 13.68

    Total Bonus Damage = 28.722

     

    Now the Artful Mod 31A

     

    84 Cunning * 1.09 = 91.56 * .2 = 18.312

    32 Power * .24 = 7.68

    Total Bonus Damage = 25.992

     

    So again, you're looking at a 2.73 DPS difference.... which is pretty insignificant so it isn't a huge issue if you only have one mod and not the other, but when given the choice, the unlettered mods are just that tiny bit better.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    So a Black Hole comms dilemma.

     

    As I have 3 50's now my first and main toon has 2 63 barrels and all 61 mods and enhancements. I can't really do anything more to him except the 63 stuff and maybe the Dreadguard earpiece and implants.

     

    As I have nowhere near enough bh comms for those should I save my comms for 2.0 and let them be exchanged or use them and send the mods and stuff to my other 2 lvl 50's who have some 61's but mostly 56's?

     

    And so far the Agent story has been the best in my opinion. Lots of twists and turns in it.

    Black Hole Comms are going to be converted to Classic Comms in 2.0 at a ratio of 1:1. In 2.0 Classic Comms can be used to buy various things, most notably, Campaign Gear (current set piece 61 gear). The problem is that they will cost more, so like 100 Classic Comms for Campaign boots, where currently you can get Black Hole Boots and Gloves for 100 BH comms.

     

    TL;DR: I'd say spend your BH comms now.

    Game Update 2.0: Scum and Villainy

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    To be fair, the majority of specs and classes in TOR don't use a true rotation system, but more of a combination of ability priority systems and ability synergism. For example on live right now, Force Stun > Tumult are two abilities that work in synergy. Just like Weaken Mind > Force In Balance work well together, or how TKT can proc instant cast Mind Crushes. In summation you don't have to learn a "rotation" but it behooves you to learn the mechanics behind all of your abilities beyond what you read on the skill tooltips.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    yes, if you augment legacy gear you can send bound augments.

     

    technically there are legacy bound bowcasters that allow you to send color crystals and barrels between characters, but they are no longer available as they were part of a world event. and there are no legacy bound swords/lightsabers, so yeah you cannot send hilts to alts.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    Thanks for the breakdown! You said only Sages get any benefit from Alacrity - does this apply also to their Imp equivalents, Sorcerers?
    As mim said, yes, but perhaps I should clarify, all the healing classes benefit from Alacrity, so Sage/Sorceror, Scoundrel/Operative and Commando/Mercenary. DPS classes wise, generally speaking only the DPS Sage/Sorceror gets any real use from Alacrity. It's debatable whether or not small amounts of Alacrity provide a DPS boost to other cast classes like Commandos and Gunslingers, while in theory the answer should be an obvious yes, the problem is it makes it much more difficult to manage your resource pool, and if you run out of your resource, you'd end up doing a lot less damage ;). Sages/Sorcs don't really have that issue.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the stats and secondary stats, so I thought I'd try to clarify to the best of my ability and understanding.

     

    Main Stats

     

    The 5 main stats are Aim, Cunning, Strength, Willpower and Endurance. Each class has a separate main stat, Aim = BH/Trooper, Cunning = Smuggler/Agent, Strength = Knight/Warrior, Willpower = Consular/Inquisitor, and lastly Endurance is used by all classes and is directly related to your HP. There are exceptions, but generally speaking DPS and Healers want more main stat than Endurance and Tanks want more Endurance than main stat.

     

    You do get secondary bonuses from other main stats, such as the Smuggler getting a bonus to Crit % from Aim, but you should not use gear/equipment with "secondary main stats" for this purpose as it isn't worth it.

     

    Secondary Stats

     

    There is a lot more confusion surrounding secondary stats than main stats for a variety of reasons. For one, diminishing returns play a much larger factor when you're talking about secondary stats, secondly you have to balance more stats instead of just stacking 1 like you would with your main stat. Secondary stats tend to break down nicely into groups.

     

    Power and Critical Rating

     

    Power is very simple to understand, for every 1 point in Power you gain a value of .24 to your Bonus Damage (and I think .17 Bonus Healing). So in layman's terms for every 100 points in power you will do on average 24 more damage to a target. It is important to note that Power has no diminishing returns, every point in Power will equal .24 bonus damage no matter how much Power you stack.

     

    Critical Rating provides you with a bonus to the percentage that your attacks hit for critical damage. An easy concept to understand, but what is important here is that the Crit Rating is on a diminishing return curve so therefore past a certain point each point of Crit Rating gives you less and less benefit. Generally speaking the target range for a DPS/Heal class is around 285-350 points in crit.

     

    Balancing Power and Critical Rating

     

    You can get Power and Critical Rating from Mods, Enhancements, Color Crystals, Earpieces, Implants and Relics. However, you can never have both Power and Crit on the same modification, e.g. there is no Enhancement in the game that gives you +Power and +Crit. That makes stat balancing very simple! Once you get your Critical Rating around that 285-350 sweet spot range, everything else should go to Power.

     

    Accuracy, Alacrity, and Surge

     

    Accuracy is another simple stat to understand when you know the mechanics behind everything. All attacks in the game can be broken down into 2 different types, White Damage and Yellow Damage (colors are based on the flytext). There are sub-types of damage but that isn't important for this. What is important is that your % to hit/accuracy for White Damage is based on your standard/Weapon Accuracy %, and the % to hit/accuracy for Yellow Damage is based on your Tech/Force Accuracy %.

     

    Now the real important part to know is that Weapon Accuracy starts at 90%, and Tech/Force Accuracy starts at 100%, so if your class/skill tree deals only Tech/Force damage, you don't need any points in Accuracy at all! DPS Sorceror's and Sage's fall into this category, and ALL healers don't need accuracy because heals are 100% to 'hit'. However, the classes that do deal in Weapon damage will want points in Accuracy. Depending on the class you tend to want around 250+ points in Accuracy which works out to 4 or 5 pieces of gear with Accuracy, some classes may be even less it depends on a lot of things, such as skill tree talent points that give accuracy and other factors.

     

    Alacrity kind of works like 'haste' in other games, it lessens the total amount of time for any abilities with a cast bar, it does not matter if it is an activation cast or a channeled cast. In the case of a channeled cast, if an ability normally would do 1000 damage over 3 seconds, with Alacrity, you would still do 1000 damage, but maybe over the course of 2.7 seconds now. Basically although the channel time is less, the total damage is the same, so you can see how this would lead to a DPS increase. Oh and also very important, ALACRITY DOES NOT DECREASE THE LENGTH OF THE GLOBAL COOLDOWN.

     

    Common sense would then dictate that the Stand and Cast DPS classes like Sages, Commandos and Gunslingers would gain a DPS boost from Alacrity, however that's really only true for Sages. If you put points into Alacrity as a Commando or Gunslinger, you run the risk of using your skills too fast without having enough time to regenerate your resource, be that Ammo or Energy, Commando's and Slingers get skill tree talents that boost Alacrity enough without spending stat points on it anyway, you are better off with your points in Accuracy or Surge.

     

    Surge increases the bonus damage dealt by attack that are critical hits, so by default a Critical hit will deal 50% more damage than a standard hit of the same ability. Points in Surge further increase that 50% bonus damage, generally to the 70% and up range on most builds for classes. Similar to Crit Rating Surge reaches it's diminishing returns right around the 285+ points range.

     

    Balancing Accuracy, Alacrity and Surge

     

    Accuracy, Alacrity and Surge can be gained from the same pieces of equipment as Power and Critical Rating, with the exception that you cannot find these stats on Mods or Color Crystals. Although this group has 3 stats, you really only have to worry about balancing 2. Healers and DPS Sages don't need Accuracy, so then have to find the balance between Alacrity and Surge. All the other DPS classes don't use Alacrity so they are balancing Accuracy with Surge. Personally what I tend to do is "cap" my Accuracy or Alacrity and then dump the rest of my points into Surge, even though this means you are severely deep into the diminishing returns on Surge.

     

    The Tanking Stats, Shield, Defense and Absorb

     

    We'll talk about Shield first because you don't ever have to worry about Shield. What the Shield Rating does is boost your % chance that you will shield incoming damage, a shielded attack has its damage reduced by the % of Absorb. Not all attacks are shield-able, but that is a separate discussion from stat allocations. What you need to know about Shield is that when picking your stats as a tank you can choose between Shield and Accuracy, and since your role as a tank is damage mitigation and not specifically dealing damage, you don't care about accuracy so you will never take it. Therefore, you don't really need to 'manage' your shield rating, so lets move on to defense and absorb.

     

    Defense and Absorb have the same stat relationship as Power and Critical Rating, so the stats can be found on all the pieces of gear and modifications with the exception of color crystals.

     

    The Defense stat increases the Defense Chance %, this is the percentage chance that an incoming attack will completely miss you, dealing zero damage.

     

    The Absorb stat increases your Shield Absorption %, so this stat works in tandem with your Shield percentage. As a quick example, let's say your shield has a 66% chance to proc with a 60% Shield Absorption rate. What this means is that 2/3rds of all incoming attack will be intercepted by your shield, and those intercepted attacks will do 60% less damage. So in effect you are taking 27% less damage than you would without a shield.

     

    Anyway, tanking stats a lot more complicated than the stats for DPS as the desired values for tanks vary wildly depending on which class you are talking about, Guardian/Juggernaut, Vanguard/Powertech or Shadow/Assassin.

     

    Speaking generically, Guardian's will want to be heavy on Defense, with less emphasis on Absorb because they have the lowest Shield chance. Vanguard's are the opposite, they rely the most on their shield and have the lowest innate defense chance so make less use of the defense stat. Shadow's tend to be in the middle and want a more even spread between Defense and Absorb. If you want to tank for end-game raids I highly suggest you do more in depth research for your specific class, and believe it or not the official SWTOR forums have topics with a wealth on information on tanking.

    The Old Republic for Dummies

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    Am putting this here because I don't know if I can become a member to the Walking Carpets website even tho I am not a member of the WC guild so I will ask this here.

     

     

    On the Walking Carpets website you guys have been adding what to do with certain classes as for how to use the skill tree and what items are best and such things.

     

    On the Gunslinger one by Mav he mentions 2 BIS Relics in Dread Guard Relic of Boundless Ages and Dread Guard Relic of Dark Radiance as Best In Slot Relics.

     

    Now I have been told repeatedly you want to boost your main stat as high as possible as it gives bonuses to your other stats so why wouldn't the Matrix Cube that gives you 88 Cunning be considerd as a BIS Relic for the Gunslinger?

     

    And I just want to say I appreciate all the things you guys do on that website as it has helped me level my other toons to be the best they can be.

    Sorry, I really don't browse the LFN forums as much as I probably should so I didn't see this sooner. Also as far as being able to post on the forums at thewalkingcarpets.com, if you create an enjin account, you should be able to post in the non-member areas, which are the ones you can see as a guest anyway, I'll have to get confirmation on that later.

     

    Now to answer your specific question regarding the BiS relics for the Gunslinger, first lets clear up that initial misinformation that is confusing you.

     

    Now, generally speaking what you heard about focusing on increasing your main stat as much as possible is for the most part correct. However it is important to know what exactly our main stat gives us. 1 point in Cunning is equal to .2 points of bonus damage and a very marginal increase in Critical Chance. So to put this in practical terms, every 100 points of Cunning translate to our attacks hitting for approximately 20 more damage. Of our secondary stats, 1 point of Power equates to a .24 bonus damage increase, so every 100 points in Power is equal to 24 more damage on average.

     

    So now you'd think, well I should be stacking Power instead of Cunning, well that's not exactly true either. Pretty much all Gunslinger specs will take the talent points that increase our Cunning by 9%, so basically every 100 points in Cunning you add, you actually get 109 points. Now in this example the 100 points in Power still add more straight bonus damage than the resultant 109 points in Cunning, but what's not factored in is the bonus Critical chance from the Cunning.

     

    So long story short it is all about what your choices are and which piece of gear gives you the best overall outcome. So let's take a look at mods first. Now if you were to pick the highest Cunning mods, you would pick up the Advanced Artful Mod 27A, they give 72 Cunning and 13 Power, the other choice is the Advanced Artful Mod 27, which gives you 56 Cunning and 44 Power. Taking what we know, lets do basic math and figure out what bonus to damage each mod gives us...

     

    Artful 27A = (72*.2)+(13*.24) = 17.52

    Artful 27 = (56*.2)+(44*.24) = 21.76

     

    As you can see, trading 16 points in Cunning for 31 points in Power, benefits us greatly, so stacking Cunning isn't always the right choice. Again not factored in is the marginal increase in Critical Chance from Cunning, but that increase will not compensate for a 4 point damage spread.

     

    Anyway, as is so often the case with me, none of this really applies that much to the whole topic of the relics, and I've gotten very far from that topic. So back to the relics.

     

    As far as the Dread Guard Relic of Dark Radiance goes, there are very lengthy discussions and number crunchers all over the official SWTOR forums and elsewhere that state that the DPS gain from the damage proc relics is greater than the Matrix Cube by far, and the static Power increase from the PvP Relics as well. As for why the Dark Radiance variation of Proc relics, well that would be because it uses your Tech crit chance to determine how often it crits, the other procs use different crit chances, some use Force crit, which obviously as Gunslingers we don't have.

     

    Now as for the Dread Guard Relic of Boundless Ages vs. the Matrix Cube, again we can defeat that debate with some simple math...

     

    For arguments sake lets say the fight lasts 5 minutes, or 300 seconds

     

    The Matrix Cube gives us 88 Cunning flat, at all times...

     

    88*.2 = 17.6 * 300 seconds = 5280 over 5 minutes

     

    Dread Guard Relic of Boundless Ages gives us a static 47 point increase to Power, and on-use increase of 350 power for... 20 seconds I think... it's 20 or 30, let's just say 20 to play it safe, and with a 2 minute cooldown we can use the relic twice over a 5 minute period

     

    47*.24 = 11.28 * 300 seconds = 3384 over 5 minutes however, lets add in the on-use bonus....

     

    350*.24 = 84 * 20 seconds * 2 uses = 3360 + 3384 from static power = 6744 over 5 minutes

     

    So, Matrix Cube 5280, DG Boundless Ages, 6744.

    News: Guild Merger!

    in The Walking Carpets & Imperialist Basterds

    Posted · Edited by Mav

    Hey everyone, as some of you may have noticed there's a new face here and you are going to find a lot more new faces when you hop back on to SWTOR.

     

    During the early days of being level 50 things had gotten stale and we were searching for ways to extend our experience with SWTOR. It was very apparent that we weren't going to be able to see all that the game had to offer without the help of others. By sheer chance we bumped into another small guild that shared our interest and desire to see all of the content beyond the class stories. Clan Dukane had set the ground work for what was to become the Casual Alliance and we were thrilled to be a part of that development.

     

    Patches and Game Updates were released, World Events came and went, Server Transfers were initiated and the line between our guilds began to blur. With the very recent super server consolidations and the imminent released of patch 1.4 and the shift to a Free-to-play system, it was finally time for that line to vanish.

     

    The goal behind this merger is to allow easier interaction between our members, increase our activity and strengthen our community as we push to meet new people and make new friends. As our server grows, we want and need to grow with it. In addition those of you that have been playing recently have undoubtedly noticed a dip in activity this merger is going to make our guild a much livelier place which I'm sure will help you all get more out of this game.

     

    So what does this mean for us LFN users? What's going to change?

     

    You're all going to have a much better opportunity to chat and play with a whole host of other friendly folks than before. You'll have many more chances to participate in end-game activities such as Flashpoints and Operations and see more of the game that could ever have alone. To that end all of the end-game operations and event will be set up through their re-branded website which you can find here: http://www.thewalkingcarpets.com. By no means are any of you required to go there and register, but I encourage you to do so. If you do choose to register there, please also fill out an application through the Recruitment tab at the top.

     

    When you hop back online and see some new names and faces, do your best to make them feel at home. If you have any questions feel free to post them here or send me a PM.

     

    Thanks and see you all online.

     

    Mav

    TOR F2P - Thoughts?

    in Tython Temple

    Posted

    The Cartel Coins/micro-trans stuff will largely be frivolous in nature, other sets of legacy/adaptive armor for looks or what not some pets maybe speeders, whatever. BioWare's already stated that to maintain BiS armor you will have to participate in end-game content a majority of which is restricted to subscribers.

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