I have not been wanting to make a big fuss about how this is working, but with the game being stun heavy, and the way unremitting is suppose to work I feel I have to try and say something on forum so Devs will hear, since you get no response from csr's in game anymore these days. Those guardians out there that play Vigilance spec will more than likely understand what Im talking about here. Unremitting is a skill that makes you invulnerable to stuns. slow, kbs and slows for 4 seconds. Masterstrike is our strongest ability and is a 3 second cast. With that being said with Unremitting coupled with Master strike, why is it that Master strike can be interrupted on its third strike while Unremitting is still up? I give the classes credit that are able to pull this off I really do. I have one sorc that I fight that uses his stun perfectly everytime (thank god for the chance of ms proccing from over head slash or plasma brand) If its working as suppose to then I understand, I just don't get how you give me unremitting, but before my 4 seconds is up Im able to be stunned. Might as well say its 3 seconds and leave it at that.

When you Force Leap (triggering Unremitting), you then have a 1.5 s global cooldown before you can start Master Strike. By the time Unremitting wears off, there is at least 0.5 s left in Master Strike's channel -- thus leaving you vulnerable to a stun.

Ah makes sense I forgot all about the GCD from the intial leap.

That last strike usually lands unless there was some sort of delay in casting it because of weird positioning when you leap in.

Just want to say how nice it is to come into a thread... see an honest question and an insightful answer.

 

Who knew the internet could actually work as intended .

Bah, I wish we had a talent to root guys we are using Master Strike on. They're usually far and away before you reach the third strike. Either that or it gets interrupted. I rarely see third strike landed in PvP. Hence Focus is the only real viable way to go. Edited April 7, 2013 by Alec_Fortescue

When you Force Leap (triggering Unremitting), you then have a 1.5 s global cooldown before you can start Master Strike. By the time Unremitting wears off, there is at least 0.5 s left in Master Strike's channel -- thus leaving you vulnerable to a stun.

 

i have not tried it but from what i have been told alacrity will reduce master strikes channel time,

 

so theoretically all you would have to do is stack enough alacrity to reduce master strike by .5 seconds (iv been told you can shorten it to a 2 second channel)

 

if your pure vigilance then it would be worth losing all the power / str stats and stacking alacrity (granted i dont know the # of alacrity actually needed) considering the 3rd strike is basically your first 2 strikes combined + some and would pretty much never get interrupted.

 

absolutely worth looking into.

 

even if you shortened it by .3 seconds it would be enough to stop almost all of the interrupts.

Edited April 7, 2013 by dufox

It's been widely discussed that alacrity in fact does not affect master strike and that stacking it on knight types is a grievous error.

It's been widely discussed that alacrity in fact does not affect master strike and that stacking it on knight types is a grievous error.

 

In 2.0 it will affect master strike however.. It still is not worth giving up the other stats for alacrity.

I think I get it now, the particular discussion revolved around MS not benefitting from Ataru Zen alacrity bonus. That's something else which probably comes in the form of charges consumed on use of certain abilities as it is now. Edited April 7, 2013 by Aelaias

Yeah, the issue is that Alacrity competes with Accuracy and Surge on our enhancements. You only have 7 enhancements in your gear, and want to be around 200 accuracy and 300 surge to maximize your damage. It really doesn't leave any room for Alacrity. Certainly don't want to give up surge, and enough of our attacks are melee that you need melee accuracy to be close to 100%. To get Alacrity high enough to be meaningful, you'd have to drop accuracy down where you might actually start missing more with both Master Strike and your regular instant attacks. Obviously this will affect Focus spec less, but Vigilance has too much damage coming out of attacks that need melee accuracy.

Yeah, the issue is that Alacrity competes with Accuracy and Surge on our enhancements. You only have 7 enhancements in your gear, and want to be around 200 accuracy and 300 surge to maximize your damage. It really doesn't leave any room for Alacrity. Certainly don't want to give up surge, and enough of our attacks are melee that you need melee accuracy to be close to 100%. To get Alacrity high enough to be meaningful, you'd have to drop accuracy down where you might actually start missing more with both Master Strike and your regular instant attacks. Obviously this will affect Focus spec less, but Vigilance has too much damage coming out of attacks that need melee accuracy.

100% accuracy really is not needed for PVP builds. Most DPS and all but sage healers will only have 5% dodge chance. Given the new stat budgets, going over 95% accuracy before talents is not ideal.

 

For PVE, accuracy will be equally important for all DPS specs, including force/tech heavy specs. This is due to the rework of base resistances on ops bosses. Without accuracy in PVE, even Force Sweep can miss.

 

Also, alacrity will still have no effect on Master Strike in 2.0.

100% accuracy really is not needed for PVP builds. Most DPS and all but sage healers will only have 5% dodge chance. Given the new stat budgets, going over 95% accuracy before talents is not ideal.

 

For PVE, accuracy will be equally important for all DPS specs, including force/tech heavy specs. This is due to the rework of base resistances on ops bosses. Without accuracy in PVE, even Force Sweep can miss.

 

Also, alacrity will still have no effect on Master Strike in 2.0.

 

Accuracy will be needed to take down tank builds in PvP since shield and defense will be more viable stats in 2.0, trust me, there are times I miss now even with 100% accuracy because a jugg used a duststorm buffed sweep that reduced my accuracy to the point where defenses had a better shot at kicking in (I've missed on Force Leap in those situations, something you never want to do, root doesn't affect the target, you do no damage, and don't actually leap to the target, while having it go on cooldown). It will be moreso in 2.0 when more tanks will be running around in defense gear, instead of dps gear.

 

For PvE, Focus spec only needs to hit 98% accuracy to get 100% chance to hit with sweep, force exhaustion and bladestorm (the major damage dealers in the spec). You get a 10% buff to accuracy for force attacks. Base resistance on level 55 ops bosses is 8%, so for 100% chance to hit, you need 108% force accuracy, meaning 98% melee accuracy, with 3% accuracy from the vigilance tree and 1% accuracy from companion perk, means you only need to get 4% accuracy from gear. So yes, Focus could possibly get away with slipping in alacrity in place of accuracy.

 

While I haven't played with alacrity on the PTS, the notes from the patch strongly hinted that it would affect it. Either way, it would take several hundred points of alacrity to achieve a meaningful reduction in channeling time, and you would be sacrificing too much in other areas you need more. To get a 0.5 second reduction in channeling, it would require pushing alacrity right up to the DR point, or maybe a little past it, meaning you'd have to sacrifice all your accuracy AND surge on your enhancements. This is not even worth doing IMHO, and that is using the DR curves for 1.7, with the reported DR curves for 2.0, it would be even less of a reduction, making it even less worth it.

Accuracy will be needed to take down tank builds in PvP since shield and defense will be more viable stats in 2.0, trust me, there are times I miss now even with 100% accuracy because a jugg used a duststorm buffed sweep that reduced my accuracy to the point where defenses had a better shot at kicking in (I've missed on Force Leap in those situations, something you never want to do, root doesn't affect the target, you do no damage, and don't actually leap to the target, while having it go on cooldown). It will be moreso in 2.0 when more tanks will be running around in defense gear, instead of dps gear.

 

For PvE, Focus spec only needs to hit 98% accuracy to get 100% chance to hit with sweep, force exhaustion and bladestorm (the major damage dealers in the spec). You get a 10% buff to accuracy for force attacks. Base resistance on level 55 ops bosses is 8%, so for 100% chance to hit, you need 108% force accuracy, meaning 98% melee accuracy, with 3% accuracy from the vigilance tree and 1% accuracy from companion perk, means you only need to get 4% accuracy from gear. So yes, Focus could possibly get away with slipping in alacrity in place of accuracy.

 

While I haven't played with alacrity on the PTS, the notes from the patch strongly hinted that it would affect it. Either way, it would take several hundred points of alacrity to achieve a meaningful reduction in channeling time, and you would be sacrificing too much in other areas you need more. To get a 0.5 second reduction in channeling, it would require pushing alacrity right up to the DR point, or maybe a little past it, meaning you'd have to sacrifice all your accuracy AND surge on your enhancements. This is not even worth doing IMHO, and that is using the DR curves for 1.7, with the reported DR curves for 2.0, it would be even less of a reduction, making it even less worth it.

 

You would need a massive amount of accuracy to counter-balance the defense rating (accuracy doesn't affect shield chance at all) of tanks in tank gear. It's not worth it.

 

I have played on PTS. Alacrity doesn't affect Master Strike.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Andrew_Past

You would need a massive amount of accuracy to counter-balance the defense rating (accuracy doesn't affect shield chance at all) of tanks in tank gear. It's not worth it.

 

I have played on PTS. Alacrity doesn't affect Master Strike.

 

I actually built two DPS suits on my guardian while the PTS was up.

 

One was basically testing DR on crit / surge values, then stacked power.

 

The other was an all alacrity (instead of power or surge).

 

You're right, alacrity did not increase MS tick, speed up the CD on any abilities, or give me ANY noticeable increase of speed against the GCD, as (I was in Vigilance setup) the attacks were basically all instant cast anyway.

 

Further, the alacrity build's damage output was so anemic, it's not even funny. With the crit/surge/power build, I was landing 8k+ dispatches. In the alacrity build, they were 4.2k. Weak.

bummer.

 

well was a nice thought

Back on topic, yes that short bit at the back side sucks, and yes, sometimes they can stun you or force speed away. But if you hold that MS till your second leap, ie. saber throw-leap-PB-OS-push-MS-freeze force-BS-Sunder they will usually throw a stun or root breaker away before you waste MS. 98% of the time I cast MS I land the full attack using that method, or some variation. People freak out a little too when you leap cause the think u will smash right after, hence wasting an ability you can break from the push leap MS. You can also find you a nice little Smasher, leap in taunt him and MS while he smashes away, or if you have another guardian you can work together to stasis and MS, if he breaks one the other can cast and the other MS, or coordinate with ur healer to hold em while you strike away all in all, just think outside the box, get some team coordination and all will be better and thus have more fun