Skill Point Allocation in the Weapon Master Era

Updated with max stats vs max crits data. Will update the spreadsheet tonight.

You got me! I hope all unintelligent people lose the ability to read the forums.

But then...

Updated with the changes to the Shield tree. The +45 resto in the tier 1 innates will be replaced with +12 crit heal mag with GU 37. Note that this now puts the Shield tree at the bottom of resto bonus potential, along with DP, DW, and MA.

ill be sharing this with my league. awesome job!
http://gateswalkin.forumotion.com/t41-skill-point-allocation-in-the-weapon-mastery-era#131

Quick question. Is it more beneficial to gey as many tier 2 crit bonuses or more beneficial to go for the bottom tier might/prec +30sp innates. At 146sp and got as many +30s as possible where i could have gotten many more tier 2 crit bonuses

Wish I found this earlier.

I did not find anything on my initial searches for guides on SP optimizing, so therefore I ended up writing the massive encyclopedia I have now.

You have pretty much everything I covered in a very small first post. I did the same thing in 8 posts - 3 of them hitting 10,000 characters each. Well done with this guide.

Feel free to cut and paste any information from my encyclopedia of a post for use in here.

In my testing with 130ish SP, going crits first resulted in about 20% more damage on average than going stats first, so I recommend filling out your crits.

Added a tip regarding best the crit type to spec (chance or mag), if you have SP limitations. Thanks to MetalMario for spawning this idea.

I enjoy your guide as well because it states exactly how many SP are needed to max out the preffered stats, so thank you sir!

So Toy generally dislikes one size fits all stuff so while bored at work I crunched my personal numbers.

Going straight to the bottom of the trees (plus my WM stuff) nets me a difference of +346 Precision (and +340 Might) in exchange for -12% chance and -12% mag. Assuming an always up 15% it becomes 397 Precision diff.

Equation for 100 hits (just for ease of breakdown) becomes 84(x+39.7) + 16(1.95[x+39.7]) = 72x + 28(2.07x)
This assumes each weapon attack is a base multiplier of 1 (hence the 39.7)
It comes out to 309 damage per hit as the break even point where Crits should get priority.

Whoopdedo Toy, we can hit for 10K with WM. Well yeah, with some things - not all. Dual Pistols especially but there are others as well that are heavy on the low multiplier multi-hit attacks. Couple that with AoE splitting and the fact that you are still beholden to the RNG gods and there is in fact a dilemma. From a power standpoint our bursts are already darn near guaranteed crits anyway hence my lean toward magnitude. Our other most commonly used power are our circles (or other passive DoTs); which break down to 119 damage break even point. That is right around what we are currently ticking at.

I'll be sticking with full crit on my quick WM combo DPS since the majority of her hits are well over the 309 threshold; however my DP (when dpsing) Rage main will continue to stack his precision until likely next tier when new weapons and gear push the basic tap, jump, and full auto nearer to that 309 threshold, GE is over the 119 threshold, and slip and magnum are more consistently over it.

TL;DR : I encourage others to at least take a look at their build (specifically how deep either way they can go with their SP) and playstyle before simply accepting go crit no questions asked.

TL;D even skim: Use big weapon attacks and powers? Go crit. Use multi-hit slightly weaker weapon attacks and powers? Stick with Precision FOR NOW.

Interesting analysis, Toy. I would be interested to see some test data to back up your calculations, though.

Exactly why I'm desperate for a PS4 parser - all I have access to is a theoretical world. Or 8 hours of my life with a notepad.

Just on observation I do more damage in TD with the precision spec (minimal variables, same group most times). Plus over the last week just eyeing it the vast majority of my RNG luck has been on basic taps, slip, and jump; far less on magnums and more importantly solar, meteor and significant chunks of flurry. Couple it with primary source of power damage being the low damage multi - hit GE and Outrage (plus I don't think relentless crits).

My Sorcery Shield DPS is a different story however as she without question runs stronger full crit priority - what I attribute to the much higher damage of the shield combos, WoD, and Shard (transmute always crits because of WM anyway).

I'd love to see some actual logs comparing the short combos of hb, shield, and dw vs dp, bow, and ma. Common sense tells me random occurrences are better from a pool of massive numbers than from a gigantic pool of 1's with a couple 10ks thrown in.

I have an inactive Rage toon villain side. If you give me some rotations to compare, I'd be glad to run them through the parser. You have my curiosity peaked. I've been meaning to repeat the tests with different SP amounts, as well, to see if it breaks down. For instance, if you just have the minimum to master a dual combo (43), are you better off with that or the crits?

That'd be awesome, basic cookie cutter Rage - Relentless, Bloodlust, RS, Galling, Outrage as the critter (sad thing is despite being two initial hits and only one getting the crit it is still probably the best option since it keeps the modifier up and the extra hits are quick to execute/clip). Jump Shot combo or Outrage closes gaps, Flurry up close, Slip combo away to safety when need be. Sorry, that is the only beauty of pistols is the situational movement so there is no hard rotation. If you aren't comfortable with pistols (many aren't) then any low damage multi-hit combos will serve the purpose for the testing - 1H's Pulse Beam or Bow's Magnum Round combos would work just as well. A run crit focused and a run precision focused would be interesting to see, especially at the 150+ SP range where you will accidentally pick up a good chunk of the crit innates anyway just going for the bottom tiers.

I am curious to see that low SP test as well; my money is on grabbing a WM > crits at that low SP point. Either way, it'll be useful information for the hoards of newcomers lately (seriously, have you seen them all in P,W,M lately?).

I've sworn by DPs on my troller for ages. Great for mobility. I haven't messed with the WM combos yet, as I picked up some better HBs in TD and have been using them. I'll see what I can do. May not be until this weekend, though. I'd ultimately like to look at minimum SP for WM (~43) and minimum SP for all crits and WM (~110).

Fantastic, and thanks. If nothing else all this speculating and testing will keep us busy until HoP.

Well, had time to run one test this morning. Used 43 SP, the minimum to master one combo, and compared doing that vs using those SP to get crits. Used hold-hold combos: HB Charged Blast to Meteor Blast and WM 1-H Focused Blast to Solar Flame. Single target. Twenty hits per.

Crits: effective DPS 933.3

WM: effective DPS 1245.1

As expected, once you have enough SP to master one combo, you're better off doing that then using regular weapon combos and specing crits.

How about nature DOT...should I go critical or focus on WM to get the third tier for the increase in might?

From what I've found, maxing the crits first is the best approach, regardless of how you create your damage. If you have some residual SP that won't get you to another set of crits, you can put those into the tier 3 stats. The exception is if you have relatively few SP. If you only have enough to unlock one WM combo, for instance, your damage will be much better with that approach than going for crits, because you can replace your regular weapon attacks with the more potent WM combos.

All three of my characters are around 100 with SP ...I was not sure if I should go with investing 7 SP Into all weapons first to improve my critical chance, than get my primary weapon combo with WM or go the three WM combo...

My personal prefence is having both WM combo on my weapon so I can do both close and range WM combo if needed...

My loadout is setup to run DPS and Healer for my Nature Character as I do not have an armory...so he is the execption here...I would need to invest all 100 as he would need both DPS and Healing for how I have him setup....