Originally Posted by
Audax
Although I have no information on sith warrior/jedi knight abilities beyond what was posted in this thread, I can tell on general principles that it is almost certainly incorrect.
It looks like the chart was assembled on the presumption that the highest damage per execution time abilites should have the highest priority regardless of cooldown. This is not correct. If you (at one time during a fight) delay an ability with a cooldown of 100 GCDs by 1 GCD, you reduce the number of casts of that ability on average by 1/100 of a cast over the course of the fight. If on the other hand you delay once for 1 GCD an ability with a cooldown of 2 GCDs, you lose half a cast (on average) over the course of the fight. Thus the actual damage loss of the delay of the first ability is the damage done by the first ability minus the damage done by your filler ability all divided by 100, and the actual damage loss of the second delay is the damage done by the second ability minus the damage done by your filler ability all divided by 2. Thus, the 2 GCD cooldown as long as it is somewhat better than filler is almost certainly a higher priority than the 100 GCD cooldown ability, even if the 100 GCD cooldown ability is really good!
Now, you might look at what I said and think, "well, what if you can fill every GCD with a low cooldown ability, then you would never cast the long cooldown ability and that's clearly wrong". The answer is that in that case the lowest damage per execution time ability that you do cast is your filler. The long cooldown ability can always replace whatever turns out to be your filler.
The above discussion doesn't take into account focus, but it is easy to correct for it. The value of focus is determined by the abilities the lowest priority focus generating ability that you actually use and the lowest priority focus using ability that you actually use, since these abilities will be the ones that you will use more of or less of depending on focus. The value of focus in terms of damage is the damage done by the lowest priority focus using ability minus the damage done by the lowest priority focus generating ability all divided by the difference in focus between the abilities (which is the sum of the focus generated by the focus generating ability and the rage used by the focus using ability). Judging from the chart, these abilities are assault and the unnamed "high damage single target ability", which I assume is a no-cooldown focus dump. The chart seems to imply that this H.D.S.T.A. has a focus cost of 6. Thus, the damage value of focus should be the damage done by the H.D.S.T.A. minus damage done by assault all divided by seven.
From the general principles outlined above, I can tell without seeing any numbers that sundering assault is almost certainly the highest priority ability. Other abilities should be fit into the gaps between sundering assaults. You should cast abilities from highest priority to lowest where priority is (adjusted damage of ability - adjusted damage of assault)/(cooldown of ability). Adjusted damage means you add the damage value of any focus generated or subtract the damage value of any focus used. Notice that the definition of adjusted damage forces the focus dump ability (assumed to be H.D.S.T.A.) to have the same adjusted damage as assault. This means that the priority does not force the choice between assault and the focus dump (both have prioirity 0). When you don't have a higher prioirity ability you choose these on the basis of focus management, i.e. making sure you have enough focus to cast any higher priority focus using abilities that are about to come off cooldown and low enough focus not to waste focus from higher priority focus generating abilities that are about to come off cooldown.
Anyway, thanks for posting this. I look forward to the vanguard/powertech chart also, especially as that is the class I am currently leaning towards.