Heya guys!! So at long last I finally had the time to go back and update all of the guides (9 of them currently) here on the wesbite. You can head on over to the Guide section, also available on the top of the website to check them out.
Heya guys!! So I basically have a crap load of things to talk about which could take up 2-3 posts, but I really want to get this stuff up for you guys now!!
How to measure DPS in game?
If you are not a back stab dependent class like the Operative or Assassin then it’s a very simple thing to do. Go to Eternity Vault (EV) and get to the Council boss fight. Convince your guild to let you fight the exact same guy every single week, or to reset the encounter a few times to get good measures. Then you simply divide the boss’s HP by your time spent fighting and you have a DPS measure.
A guildy got in about 2 good hits, so this probably would have been just over 40 seconds. Which when compared to below on the exact same Ops shows how much RNG exists with the Carnage spec due to the mechanics behind Ataru form.
This was my first kill and took 51 seconds to do. Obviously there has been a significant improvement in my dps over the course of just one week.
What did this teach you SJ?
Carnage has far too much RNG for me to be comfortable with it. On top of that it “feels” like it under performs for both PvE and PvP. While I don’t have numbers to back that up, it is a consistent experience while using this spec. Personally speaking, Carnage/Combat is not a “viable” choice for top tier PvE and PvP content.
Annihilation runs into Rage starvation less often and the self heals can be a major advantage in Ops, especially when the healers are being heavily pressured. While I am unsure of the value of Rage/Focus for PvE, it is definitely better for PvP over Carnage. There’s a lot more to this opinion, but at this time I am not prepared to fully go into it. Long story short, if you’re not in love with Carnage I’d drop it for something else.
I was overly cautious (afraid to leave my “side”) and didn’t understand that the Guardian was the mob I needed to focus down, not swapping where I needed to be. This is a failure but a learning experience.
At 14 seconds the Guardian casts Force Barrier. You have got to interrupt this. Failing to do so will result in your death, or someone else’s death. You cannot miss this effect.
At 27 seconds I have already killed my add, and then dropped a Force Scream on the nearest add. I did not go over and assist on the 3rd add as I should have because I didn’t honestly understand the mechanics of the fight yet. I did know that if I missed the interrupt (Force Barrier) when the mob spawned I was probably going to die. So I stupidly didn’t go aid on the 3rd mob like I needed to until way too late.
At 40 seconds a Watcher spawns. While these mobs need to be interrupted as well, their channel is nowhere near as deadly as the Guardian’s Force Barrier. At the time however I did not make that connection, thinking that both mob types could do the shield.
At 1:06 two raid members (in my area) die to a Guardian, I assume from Force Barrier. As the Watchman was not nearly as much of a threat as the Guardians I should have already swapped over to the Guardians to assist with burn down and interrupts to ensure no Force Barriers would go up at all.
At 1:13 new spawns come out and instead of finishing the other side’s Guardian I go pick up my Watcher. This again was a mistake because the Guardian is a much higher threat and needed to be taken down 1st, not even accounting for the fact that it was far lower health. This also left that far side to deal with 2 Guardians at the same time, setting the raid up for failure.
At 1:48 we become overwhelmed with 5 total mobs. Again I was unsure as to what was blowing me up previously and killing me almost instantly (Force Barrier on the Guardian) so I became indecisive and wasn’t sure what I should focus at this point. In short, I panicked.
At 2:01 I miss the interrupt on the Guardian because I am still not sure what to do and over thinking the fight. Swapping over to the Watcher (lowest health) was a mistake and missing that interrupt on the Guardian because I wasn’t going to dps the higher health mob is what resulted in my death.
Summation: Force Barrier *MUST* be interrupted at all costs. You have your regular interrupt, Force Charge interrupts casts as well, and you can use Force Choke to stop the cast too. If you have to decide between which mobs to kill, always go for the Guardians first.
I used some macros from my N52 TE keypad and didn’t have them turned on, so I was flipping out wondering why my abilities were not going off and changing my settings during the fight. You can’t see that as I directly capture the game video itself and not the screen region. This is an example of failure imo and is what happens when you use macros but forget to turn them on.
Site Updates
I already started working on the revamp a few days back on my Crew Skills guide, but I have not finished yet. So that should be done within a day or so. Once that is done I need to check back over the last 4 guides I’ve not rechecked since game launch. Once that is all finally finished I will be moving back towards more “Pro Tips” and Numbers/Theory Crafting posts.
Apologies if this post has bad editing and choppy grammar. I really rushed this one out without my normal editing process. Just short on time.
Heya guys!! So I’m going in way too many directions atm, but what can you do? I’ve been working on getting my green matrix shards (which is the relevancy of the previous post), prepping research for Carnage/Combat, and I want to update my crew skills guide as well. PLUS I need to go back and touch on Annihilation again, research stat weights, get some Rage/Focus numbers, etc, etc, etc… Oh yeah, and actually play the video game for fun, heh. ;)
I was going to put up the screenshots for the tooltips numbers, but that’s a surprising load of work actually because they show up stretched and fugly, so they have to be resized twice on top of entering the files, boring bull shit you don’t wanna hear, and so on…
So I thought I’d leave you with what are for me the most relevant questions at the moment…
Calculate how Empowerment and Berserk interact.
Get baseline DPR/DPF numbers with my current gear (T1/T2 PvP/PvE) for each spec and save the item build to be used for each spec.
Find more specific information on crew skills and effects of affection.
Find some basic research on stat weights and figure out a general baseline.
Stop thinking of more things because I already have too much to do…
Why tell you guys? If you happen to find a good site or info out there let me know!! Anything to help is always appreciated.
Heya guys!! Here’s an easter egg hunt to drive ya bonkers. Here’s a rough approximation for some of the spawn points known in Belsavis. Please note the word “ROUGH” as I have shitty MS Paint skills. What are these for? That’s your homework. Find out why in the hell I’d put myself through this and you will get a prize.
Heya guys!! Cleared Eternity Vault for the first time last night on normal mode so I made some clips for you to take a look at from the run. I am running Carnage spec in these videos and cannot promise you that I did a “perfect” run. I’m still learning the class, the spec, the encounters, etc…
1st Council kill against Za’Heen Kaur in normal mode. This was a personal victory as the 1st time I came in here I was under geared and failed miserably… 51 sec of combat, 48699 hp = 954.88 dps
