Jaren_Kincaid Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I'm wondering which enhancements to craft, and I looked up alacrity rating on SWOTOR wiki, and got this: Alacrity rating is a haste effect. It reduces the length of channeled abilities and reduces the cooldowns of abilities that have activation times longer than 1.5 seconds. It does not affect abilities that utilize the default 1.5 second GCD, such as instant abilities. What is a channelled ability, and what is an instant ability? Can anyone help, please? Also, would this, for example, speed up the ability to plant bombs during PvP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haliy Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 channeled abilities are those skills which take more than a click to cast (commonly shown as taking 1-2 seconds to cast). Instant abilities are those which once you click the skill, it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfurry Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Channeled ability - ability that your character has to "channel", that is, stay still while the ability is taking place. This is different from a casting ability, since the latter has no effect until the cast time is finished. Telekinetic Throw is an example - you start throwing rocks and doing damage immediately, but you have to be still and not take damage for the duration in order to do full damage. Instant ability - ability that you can cast instantly without standing still. Project is an example of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatile Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I don't believe Alacrity will have any affect on non-class skills, like bomb-planting (I don't PvP so can't be sure). Channeled abilities are those like Force Lightning - you have a cast bar that goes down and damage is being done during that time. Cast abilities are those like Lightning Strike - you have a couple of seconds cast time and then the ability goes off. Instant abilities are those like Shock - you hit the button, damage is dealt. Alacrity reduces the channeling time of things like Force Lighting, meaning you damage ticks become closer together - it reduces cast time of things like Lightning Strike, making a 1.5 second cast 1.3 and so on. Or at least, that's the idea. I'm not a theorycrafter, this is just from my own experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owsley Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) Others have answered the difference so I'll address the practical use of Alacrity. It's most benficial to healers and range DPS users, which have casting (activation) times for many abilities. For a class like Bounty Hunter, almost all their abilities are instant so they don't get much benefit from Alacity. It's also a double edge sword when it comes to ranged DPS. It's very handy for PvP where standing still to cast has a big disadvantage. In PvE it's been argued in the Sniper forum that increased alacirity means you are depleting your power pool faster. If you have pool issues you are better off increasing another stat like critical, surge or power. Critical is subject to the law of diminishing returns when it gets to about 30%. Alacrity will not speed up your bomb planting. You might want to read up on the basics of stats: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=88942 Edited July 25, 2012 by Owsley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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