Friday 10 June 2016

Optimal Stat Distribution

This article focuses on fundamental stats distribution. If you are interested in alternative methods of gearing and advanced tweaks, see Gear Tuning.


Generally, we are looking at two types of stats; a) stats we get and b) stats we can play with.


A) Stats we get

These are the stats we get from gear but we don't really want to focus on. It includes Mastery, Endurance and Power. Don't get me wrong, we still need all of them but we get more than enough from gear by default that it isn't worth adding more by any other means. The only exception is the Stim (see Consumables).


Endurance

Since when is our total health pool not important? You need to be around 78k health at least to not get kicked right after you joined by the majority of Hard Mode PuGs – it's not cool, but true unfortunately. But that doesn't mean we want to go all out on Endurance. It comes with gear and it is enough. A lot of it also comes from augments where it's again more of a by-product. For reference, our health pool reaches 80k at ~224 gear rating (fully augmented ofc).

Mastery

Same as Endurance, we get enough Mastery from gear by default, there is no good reason to try and get some more from other sources apart from the Stim (see Consumables).

Power

Same as Endurance and Mastery, we get enough Power from gear by default, there is no good reason to try and get some more from other sources apart from the Stim (see Consumables).

B) Stats we can play with

Now here's the part that explains why some people pull out bigger numbers than others while roughly at the same skill level. It is with Augments, an Earpiece and Implants that we play around with these stats and determine their final value. This is where we, as a player, can make the choice.

Accuracy

Accuracy is the first thing we should focus on once we reach level 65 and start gearing up towards hard mode flashpoints and operations. Here it is crystal clear. If you don't have at least 100% Accuracy, you risk some of your abilities missing the boss which means losing dps, no matter your gear rating. Our aim is the get above 100% as little as possible, it's that simple. If you had for instance 99.50%, you might only miss once throughout a 6-minute fight but you still don't want to risk that. It could be your procced Overhead Slash! The cap that gets you to 100% is 685.

The best way to get as close to the cap as possible:
~216 gear rating: 742 (2x Initiative Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 6x Accuracy Augment)
~220 gear rating: 685 (2x Initiative Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 5x Accuracy Augment)
~224 gear rating: 701 (2x Initiative Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 5x Accuracy Augment)

Basically, Accuracy is the first thing we should work on before we start worrying ourselves about Alacrity and Critical.

Alacrity

Alacrity has been made important with 4.0 and all dps classes need it for PvE. It makes our channelled abilities execute faster, it lowers the Global Cooldown and it also reduces the cooldown on most of our abilities. What it generally does is that we can execute our rotation quicker which increases our dps. That's why I recommend focusing on getting Alacrity to our sweet spot before we start working on Critical. It helps us get used to the speed of our rotation at which it'll stay forever (read “until the next big patch that shuffles things around”). No cap here, but diminishing returns strikes too hard around ~900 so there's no benefit in getting any higher.

The optimal value to get:
~216 gear rating: 894 (3x Quick Savant Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 6x Alacrity Augment)
~220 gear rating: 845 (3x Quick Savant Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 5x Alacrity Augment)
~224 gear rating: 869 (3x Quick Savant Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 5x Alacrity Augment)

Critical

Critical has been revamped and what used to be Surge is now an inherent part of the Critical stat, therefore making it more important than ever before. Critical now increases both the chance to score a Critical hit and the Critical damage. As you can see, this does nothing to the flow of our rotation, it is a pure damage boost *only*. Again, no cap here, but diminishing returns strikes too hard around ~1150 so there's no benefit in getting any higher.

The optimal value to get:
~216 gear rating: 902 (5x Adept Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 2x Critical Augment)
~220 gear rating: 1092 (5x Adept Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 4x Critical Augment)
~224 gear rating: 1132 (5x Adept Enhancement/Earpiece/Implant + 4x Critical Augment)

In summary, you should always focus on getting to 100% Accuracy first before anything else. When you achieve that, get your Alacrity higher to get used to executing your rotation faster and lastly, build up your Critical with the remaining Augment slots to give your dps the final boost. You can of course build Alacrity and Critical simultaneously, but that might prolong the period of getting used to your rotation at a certain pace as it will get faster with additional Alacrity later on – but some might prefer it that way.

Feel free to add your comments, I'm always open to discussion and new ideas!

Remain Vigilant!

Thursday 9 June 2016

About me and this blog


Hello everybody,


I have decided to start up yet another blog (see my RP blog Journalist). This time, I wanted to focus on something that has been with me since the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Over time, I have been more or less forced to change my main progression character multiple times to better help the particular team I was a part of, but my Guardian has always remained my true main character.
For the record, I have experience with progressing top-tier content as a Vigilance Guardian, Gunnery Commando, Seer Sage, Sawbones Scoundrel and Kinetic Combat Shadow. I also play a lot of other specs, I take them to SM / HM operations, but I wouldn't consider myself getting 100% out of them.

Back at launch, however, I started off as tank. I had played WoW for about 4 years which was enough to figure out that as a tank I would get into groups faster because there aren't that many tanks around. That premise proved to be true and I had been tanking until the arrival of Explosive Conflict. It was at that time when I first swapped my main spec to Vigilance and absolutely fell in love with it.

Since then, I have tried tanking and playing the Focus spec in both PvE and PvP, but none of it really did it for me and I always went back to Vigilance and experienced joy combined with relief. These days, I'm pretty sure Vigilance will remain my No.1 spec across all my Legacy.

So here I am, creating a new blog dedicated purely to Vigilance. My intention is to create three main sections:
1) Practical things; i.e. gearing, stats distribution, rotation, abilities, etc.
2) Useful tips and tricks; i.e. particular boss tactics, group utility, uptime, etc.
3) Random rant about Vigilance related stuff, which is self-explanatory.

I hope you will find my blog useful, be it for practical or just entertainment reasons.

Thank you for stopping by!

Remain vigilant!