Dear Dodd,

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Fynn
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Dear Dodd,

Post by Fynn » Wed Nov 14, 2012 7:43 pm

So last night you had a few questions regarding gearing. Here's a couple links that I've found immensely helpful

Sawbones SWTOR Thread
MMO Mechanics. It is written for Imperial agents, but the info is 100% transferable

Just a couple of things I've picked up, too.

"Upper Hand" (from here on known as UH) is a critical part of your build. You can stack up to three, and you receive it by either casting " Underworld Medicine"(UM)(when trained) or criting on Slow-Release Med Pack(SRMP)(when trained). Using this logic, I've found that Crit and Alacrity are under-valued in the community for the Sawbones build.
  • Alacrity: Alacrity will increase the speed at which a channeled heal will be cast. Alacrity is the only stat that will do this. Obviously, quicker cast times have two perceived effects. First, and most obviously, is the quicker delivery of a heal to its intended target. Second, more heals=less energy. To mitigate some of the negative side effects of point 2, we have a skill known as Diagnostic Scan(DS). When trained, this skill will not only grant 2 energy when crit'd, but will crit at a 24% greater rate. This heal is also affected by alacrity, and will INCREASE the amount of energy regen because of its increased casting (due to decreased channel). Further, you can increase your Alacrity by up to 6% through the skill tree, gaining more bang for your buck. Don't misinterpret this as me saying dump ALL of your skill into Alacrity. I'm simply saying that it is arguably a better choice once your Surge hits 70% and a significantly better choice once your Surge hits 75%
  • Power VS Critical VS Skill: You will constantly hear the ongoing argument of Crit VS Power VS Skill. I would argue that there is no more important stat than Skill for two reasons. First, the 9% increase that can (and should) be trained in the skill tree. 10 points of power or crit is 10.9 Skill. Easy. Second is that Skill grants a bonus to both Healing bonus and Crit %. The bonus is not as large as it would be if invested in the appropriate stats, though, which may sway you when working BiS. Next, I would build my Critical Rating to AT LEAST 35%. There is diminishing return on this stat, so anything above 40% becomes inefficient (and some argue anything above 30-35% as well). I just feel the extra points are so beneficial for its chance of granting UH. UH grants Pugnacity (passive energy regen), Kolto Pack(faster then UM and less energy consumption), and Emergency Medpack (no cast time, small-ish heal) as well as grants a 6% increase to healing while active. So you cast SRMP on 3 people with a 38% ctir chance, and theoretically you will have UH generate with every tick of at least one of those SRMP cast. That's gold. Once you start getting to Campaing/Dread Guard gear, you'll find you may want to swap out some crit for some power, but I never let my crit drop below 36% unbuffed. Ever!
As is Always the case, playstyle factors into your build greatly. Figure out what you like and go with it!

And now let that all sink in...sorry
Fyyn Cob
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Dodd Formeianna
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Dodd Formeianna » Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:21 pm

Thanks Fynn. With the exception of being a bit rusty, I'd like to think I'm pretty clear on the strategy and rotation part, as well as energy management. I just need more practice. I figure a few HMs later this weekend with our picnic should help a lot.

At this point, I'm pretty well stacked on all Columni modded gear or better (now have a few Rakatas, especially the chestpiece from last night's run). My Power is currently somewhere around 1750 IIRC. In looking at all the gear available I'm still not 100% clear on how to increase it to 2000 - seems like a bit of a stiff climb for me. I seem to be consistently critting in excess of 5K per UM which lends itself to nice big fat heals.

I just hate having to go through the process of stripping mods down, calculating where to stick them back in and experimenting with stats. It gets costly pretty fast...even adding all the augments last night came to over 30K per. It's sorta where the game loses me a bit since you basically need to keep doing dailies repeatedly to keep up with the Joneses.

As there are diminishing returns with some stats, I'm also a believer in Skill > Power over the others, but spreading the love into the secondary stats (especially crit and surge) rather than stacking into a single one to avoid the diminishing returns phenomena from the single stat fetish. On that note, are there any threads that post stat requirements for optimized healer builds? I.E. For this Ops, you should have this much power, this much skill, this much crit, alacrity, etc.? I'd really like to baseline my stats against other "average" builds to see how I fare, and gauge my readiness for some of the higher endgame content I haven't experienced yet.

Cheers,
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Blackferne » Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:37 pm

Dodd I was only glancing at your gear last night for a few odds and ends, how close are you to being in all Rakatta or better? Have you completed HMKP yet?

I'm just thinking we could manage to assemble some HM KP/EV for alts+you we could nudge it along.
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Dodd Formeianna » Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:46 pm

Blackferne wrote:Dodd I was only glancing at your gear last night for a few odds and ends, how close are you to being in all Rakatta or better? Have you completed HMKP yet?

I'm just thinking we could manage to assemble some HM KP/EV for alts+you we could nudge it along.
I haven't done HMKP yet, I don't think. I just finished it in SM, IIRC.
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Furiel » Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:06 pm

This is my rough estimate for being gear ready for an op. Remember tho that if you are running with us most of us if we are bringing mains or even a number of alts, are already well outgearing the lower content so we can compensate some for a couple people not being fully up to par gear-wise. Each progression step of course builds on the one below it and these are minimum levels and gear averages.

EV SM - daily and regular crafted purples
KP SM and EV HM - some columi
KP HM and EC SM - full columi
EV NM, KP NM, EC HM and TFB SM - full rakata
TFB HM - some campaign

Edit: You can check you codex to see who you've killed, plus you may want to go back and do all the SM's at least once because I think you slipped into daddy-cation before the vehicle quests came out so you may want to go back for those.
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Fynn
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Fynn » Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:32 pm

Dodd Formeianna wrote:Thanks Fynn. With the exception of being a bit rusty, I'd like to think I'm pretty clear on the strategy and rotation part, as well as energy management. I just need more practice. I figure a few HMs later this weekend with our picnic should help a lot.
Sorry for the redundancy. Let me know if you need a hand with anything, I'd be happy to help!
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Skiggity » Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:32 pm

Heh, you got the Rakata chest in LI HM last night, that was fortuitous!
-Skiggity, Sage DPS
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Dodd Formeianna
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Dodd Formeianna » Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:47 pm

I just wanted to express my thanks for all the love the guild showed me last night in the HM EV run. All kidding aside, you guys are class acts.

Last night was a good night for Dodd - I got a few upgrades and managed to add augment slots quite a few items, plus I had BH comms to buy my best and wrists, pretty major upgrades. I still have a couple of pieces left to slot, but I'm now pretty closer to 1900 Cunning. Again - not really sure about baselines but when I threw a few Kolto packs last night to test it out I critted in excess of 6K, then I crit my pants shortly thereafter.

Maybe an HM KP run and I'll be close to Rakata'd out, excepting my mainhand. I haven't gotten Columni MH yet, but I did have an extra offhand and I was able to use the barrel to upgrade it.

Anyways - thanks again.
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Re: Dear Dodd,

Post by Staris » Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:10 pm

Yea you did great last night might even be able to go trough EC Story where the entire rakata set drops plus expose you to the fights we are working on in hard mode but that's just a thought KP Hardmode would work just as well.

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