SCF? please

[gumm]

Hello all,
 I was wondering about SCF...does it add a chance to do a crit with a weapon proc at all so we do more damage with the proc?  or is it only our cast DD spells? Thanks in advance.

Thanks
Gumm

[Morganti]

yep, adds a crit chance to procs as well as our DDs

[gumm]

sweet, I just might have to put some points into it..I love doing eye candy lol, I think thats what I miss most about my warrior.  So how do you tell if you do a crit with the proc?  Does it look like a normal crit or does it say crit blast type thing?

Gumm

[Sempai]

Looks just the same from a critical proc as a critical nuke.

Proc:
You deliver a critical blast! (1500)
Researcher Kaeon's body is torn in a time lapse.

Nuke:
You deliver a critical blast! (1545)
A ra`tuk bonebreaker staggers as a frost spear slams against them.

Copied directly from my logs.

[Tastian]

Yeah just like a normal critt cast.  Although scf is definetly a skill that improves as you go...

Rank 1 -  2% chance for a crit that can do 33% more damage
Rank 2 -  4% chance for a crit that can do 66% more damage
Rank 3 -  7% chance for a crit that can do double damage

Still resists and stuff factored in and it's possible to crit for less than the normal spell.  My personal best is crit'n a 75 hp lifetap for 3 then crit'n the heal portion for 6.  If you like eye candy with your effectiveness spell crits and healing crits with lifetapping weapons can be solid spam and actually do a fair bit of healing too.

[EmrysX]

yesp, SCF is, IMO, one of the best AAs around. It really improves as you get more levels in it, and it's really fun.

I really crit quite a lot between nukes and procs.

[Mahes]

Definitely a great AA and fun as well.

The only exception to crits procs are those that have another component to them.  For example the Shinai of the Ancients has a DD as well as an attk debuff.  The debuff keeps the DD portion from critting.  I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, though I imagine it's mainly a coding thing.

[katahn]

Since lifetaps are two-effects, the first being the DD "damage" and the second being the "heal" based on the amount of damage, I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) that getting healing adept will make lifetap procs even nastier.  Crit or not, the healing portion will be stronger, and then if you crit, the enhanced heal is also improved.  If it stacks with Healing Gift (and I am brain-farting here and not remembering if beastlords get that) then you can crit the lifetap, the get an exceptional heal together.

[Dummkopf]

Thats true, the max heal from a 75 lifetap is a 356 heal. But its really rare to have 2 crits on one proc, first the dd crit and on top of that the exceptional heal. It is common enough however to get exceptional heals on normal procs or just the higher part of the critted proc.

It is very nice if you get those rare double procs and both crit, with an ed thats just 3k damage in a very short time.

[TerjynPovar]

Don't get too excited.  Barring Lifetap procs or insane damage procs like Ethereal Destroyer, SCF is about the worst DPS/AA ratio you can get.

Feral Swipe beats it out for pure DPS/AA...and you know that's not a good sign.

[Mahes]

interesting opinion

[Tastian]

It depends on how much you nuke/what procs you have and your situation.  In order to be ~even with feral swipe in terms of AA to damage ratio you need to do ~1700 damage a minute in non-melee damage.  Most people have no problem throwing out 1 frost spear per minute.  With WA5, procs on weapons etc you can make up the difference.  It really depends.  With the limited range on feral swipe (that still needs to be fixed!!) and the silly streaks of misses it's very easy for SCF to out perform FS in many fights.  Other night during 5 different boss mob fights I got in one feral swipe and ate an AE for the miss (shame it wasn't another 861 punch).  However I had several crit procs/nukes during that time.  With feral swipes range atm I'd easily take SCF for it's sheer burst appeal during big mob kills and eye candy.  Also if you do have something like an eth destoryer or even just a few weapons with good procs/WA5 SCF is definetly the way I'd go.  Feral swipe is just too annoying and random for it's minor dps boost atm imo.  *shrugs*

[Murkk Dakruul]

No way in hell feral swipe out DPS's SCF3....

[TerjynPovar]

I didn't say it out-DPS'd SCF3.

I said it had a better DPS/AA ratio without very good procs.

SCF3, without Focus, adds ~1.35 DPS to just Frost Spear assuming Frost Spear hits for full every single time you use it, and you cast it immediately every time it refreshes.

Tastian's parses put Feral Swipe at 1.5 DPS.  This means that you need .65 DPS just from procs out of SCF3 to match in DPS/AA ratio.

With Weapon Affinity 5, and a normal proccing weapon, this means you need a pair of weapons which proc for >125 damage each proc, assuming every single proc hits for full.

This is simple math.

If you have the GoD nukes, grats...you win.  If you have Ethereal Destroyer/Lifetap style procs, again SCF3 might be worth it.

If you fall into the category of person who's asking if SCF3 works on weapon procs, no way in hell is SCF3 worth much.

If you are me, with no real chance to get the nukes from GoD, and using a SHO w/Rujarkian Bile in mainhand and a WLK in offhand, then guess what?  Feral Swipe *IS* a better DPS/AA deal.

This isn't opinion, this is fact.  Sorry, I forgot in order to say something like this you either have to be Coprolith or present 3 pages of math.  My bad that I didn't do that the first time.

[Tastian]

If you had 150dd in procs main hand and 125 dd in procs off hand with 0 WA you'd need to nuke frost spear twice a minute to be about even with borderline perfect feral swipes.  For some people that are dps'n that's nothing.  I run two nukes usually and used to have three on occasions.  150dd proc main is EF type 4 and 125 off is ruj type 4.  If you have fangs, battle fists, etc it cuts down on how much you have to nuke.  If you have WA it cuts down more etc.

Also like I mentioned feral swipe is sporadic at best.  17 straight misses honestly hurts my brain lol.  The range needs to fixed yesturday imo.  I'm seriously getting tired of being in melee range and in some cases even tanking mobs and seeing 'You target is too far away".  On many boss mobs it's just pointless.  For this reason and a few others SCF out weighs feral swipe in many people's minds.

You are correct that in your situation FS > SCF3 for %gain to AA ratio and I knew what you meant.  Just also realize that it doesn't take an eth destoryer to make SCF3 > feral and that because of the current bugged limitations on feral swipe atm there are times where it is basically 0 dps over rather large periods of time.