By Ghoztt
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a total geekout fest with number crunching and extreme min-maxing information. I’ll do one of those articles later. This article will be more focused on what beginner theorycrafters should know about their characters and what stats they should be focusing on. We’ll also get a little into the numbers, but feel free to snooze when we get to that point. 🙂
Stats are separated into two groups, primary stats and secondary stats. Your primary stats are going to be the main stat for your class (Aim, Cunning, Strength or Willpower) and Endurance. It could be argued that Presence and Expertise are main stats since they occupy the same area on the character sheet. However, since they don’t contribute to PvE operations we’ll just gloss over that.
Your secondary stats consist of anything among the drop down menus on your character sheet but they are mainly changed by the items that you have equipped that have stats on them. Those stats are Accuracy, Critical, Surge, Alacrity, Power, Tech Power and Force Power.
Healer/DPS Stat Focus
When gearing up as a healer or dps your main stat should be your main priority. Not only will it increase your bonus to damage/healing, but it will also increase your critical chance. This, however, is only up to a certain point where diminishing returns start to take effect. At that point, choosing power over your main stat is going to gain you the most benefit (assuming you are at the point of critical chance diminishing returns). While on the subject, diminishing returns is the point at which the benefit of putting points into a stat starts to give less and less benefit. You’ll hear a lot of this mentioned when talking about stats.
The point where power starts to win out over your main stat is going to depend on your advanced class. I have heard the number 1800 main stat thrown out there, but that may be the point where diminishing returns begin. It still may give you an advantage over power, just not as much as if you were under that 1800 limit. As an example, my character is currently at about 2136 unbuffed aim. By changing my augments from -252 aim to +252 power, I would lose 1.3% crit but gain only 0.6 points into bonus damage while raid buffed and no stim. That doesn’t seem like a very good trade-off. It would seem that, at least for powertech dps, the point of main stat diminishing returns are higher than the prescribed 1800. You will have to play around with your character’s stats to find yours.
Along with your main stat will come a few other secondary stats which will require attention. You should start to accompany your main stat with Critical, Surge and Power until you reach the point of diminishing returns of Critical and Surge. Critical reaches DR at about 31%-32%. Surge is about 75%-76%. Power, however, currently has no DR so you get full benefit from every point you put into power. Your stat focus should look something like this:
Main stat (until DR) > Critical chance (until DR) = Surge (Until DR) > Power
Of course, this shouldn’t mean you should neglect Power and try to reach those DR points on the other stats. Try to buff them up roughly equally until you start to reach the DR points then your main focus should be power.
We haven’t talked Accuracy on any of the stats yet for DPS. That is because it is largely a useless stat. I have never recorded a miss and stacking it to the prescribed 8%-10% over base doesn’t increase damage done. I’m fairly confident in saying to ignore it altogether. If you end up with some because it happens to be on a piece of gear you can’t get rid of then there’s not much you can do about it. For the most part, though, don’t even worry about it.
This may sound rather expensive to test out item mods but fortunately there is a tool to use to make this endeavor more affordable. Ask Mr. Robot has a great site where you can build out your character on paper (or rather digitally) and change out mods to see how they affect your character. It is a little time consuming to set up at first but once you have your character there you can save it and edit it as your gear changes.
Originally, this was going to be an article for all roles but, as you can see, just talking about DPS and healing already takes up quite a bit of space. To make this subject lighter on the reading I’ll break up the tanking section to another article. I’ve recently started tanking for operations so it’s just as well. I’ll have a more intimate knowledge of the stats the more I play the role. Stay tuned for the next installment!
Ready check done? Pulling in 3… 2… 1…
Good article, Ghoztt. Thanks for writing it. Why do you believe Surge is superior to Power in order of importance? I have a Sage healer (who focuses on ops and fps) and thought Power should be stacked over Surge. My Critical chance is currently around 42% (mix of mostly Rakata, some Campaign, 1 Columi, and MK-6 and MK-5 augments). I’m wondering after reading your article if I would be better off seeing if I can reduce my Critical chance some (to maybe 35%) and up Power or Surge more. I’ll have to check out Ask Mr. Robot and play around with things.
Great article. Looking forward to your more in depth analysis. Keep up the good work.
Hey guys, thanks for the comments. Thross, you may want to take a look at that ask Mr. Robot site and do a paper doll of your character. Start playing with the mods and enhancements and you may find that your stats may be better spent elsewhere. The 200 extra points put into crit may only be netting you 1-2% extra crit verses getting 200 to power which would increase your healing bonus by quite a bit. As far your other question regarding Surge>Power, I may have worded it strangely in the column. Basically, you should be putting a balance of Crit, Surge and Power. Once Crit and Surge reach the point of DR then start focusing on power. I hope that makes sense! 🙂
Thanks, Ghoztt. It does make sense.