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Is Alacricity rly that usefull in pvp? (And what about crit)


Bilch

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Hey,

 

i heard from some people that Alacrity is very usefull no matter what. even for melee classes without casttimes.

 

But for me thats hard to imagine. Even if i go for a high breakpoint of 1860+ alacrity for the 1,3s global cooldown (is it still this way?) That would be just 1 attack more in roughly 15 sec (and since you dont do all the time attacks (getting stunned...) i think its even less.

 

So why are so many people going for high Alacrity?

 

And what about crit? I read that 1796 is the max crit before mastery gets more usefull for dmg. (is that still the case) and what about classes that haave higher critt from th start like a rage jugger? And is attack power better or worse than crit?

 

Hope i can get some understanding how the stats work.

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Stat numbers vary from class to class, and even spec to spec.

 

Some classes get alacrity %boosts, some classes do not need accuracy, etc...

 

Supposably, even Internet connection speeds can also play a factor for players when choosing stat allocation.

 

Some classes might need a certain cast time speed in-order to fit a certain string of abilities within certain Burst windows.

 

1859+ alacrity is not a one size fits all, but due to the high stat bloat 252/258 gear has, it “probably” is benificial to at least achieve 703+ alacrity on all non-tank specializations.

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You have to have some Alac unless you want to ride the DR curve so there's no reason not to hit the first breakpoint i.e. 702+ Alac. So the question is is the second breakpoint (1857+ Alac) worth it?

 

I hit the second breakpoint on all my healers (this is absolutely optimal for heals), AC's with built in Alac i.e. Lightning and Arsenal, and on my Pyro PT as well.

 

I run the first breakpoint with 2200+ Crit on my burst chars i.e. Fury, Marksman, and Deception. This breaks down to Alacrity = 2 Enhancements + 2 Augments, Crit = 8 Enhancements + Relics + Acc Stim, and Acc = 5 Augments + Acc stim and Mastery = 7 Augments. 258/236 gear assumed.

 

I run 5 Augment + Stim 110% Acc on all my DPS chars, this adds minimal DPS in PvP but so would using it for Crit/Alac/Mastery and it's nice not to have to switch gear.

 

These set-ups work well for me since I'm pretty much always top damage and kills.

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And what about crit? I read that 1796 is the max crit before mastery gets more usefull for dmg. (is that still the case) and what about classes that haave higher critt from th start like a rage jugger? And is attack power better or worse than crit?

 

That threshold is probably more applicable to classes that do mostly weapon damage (so called "white" damage, because the flytext numbers that come up over the enemy are white, instead of yellow.) For example, Carnage Maras, Sharpshooter Gunslingers, and Arsenal Mercs all do mostly weapon (white) damage. Classes that do mostly tech or Force damage (yellow damage) can likely tolerate a much higher critical rating, like 2300-2400, for example, Lightning Sorcs. Healers of course do all their heals as tech or Force damage, and they don't need much accuracy, so they can stack quite a bit of alacrity and crit.

 

Power is better than Mastery, but Power is largely fixed based on gear since there are no 236/240-rating Overkill augments. Since the augments are mostly what people have to play with in terms of their stat budget (especially in the 5.10 era), that's why people talk about Mastery instead of Power on their gear. The only place where you can really choose between Mastery and Power is in your mainhand and offhand color crystals, and in most gearing recommendation schemes its assumed you're using Eviscerating (critical rating) color crystals.

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Hey,

 

i heard from some people that Alacrity is very usefull no matter what. even for melee classes without casttimes.

 

But for me thats hard to imagine. Even if i go for a high breakpoint of 1860+ alacrity for the 1,3s global cooldown (is it still this way?) That would be just 1 attack more in roughly 15 sec (and since you dont do all the time attacks (getting stunned...) i think its even less.

 

So why are so many people going for high Alacrity?

 

And what about crit? I read that 1796 is the max crit before mastery gets more usefull for dmg. (is that still the case) and what about classes that haave higher critt from th start like a rage jugger? And is attack power better or worse than crit?

 

Hope i can get some understanding how the stats work.

 

actually there no set rules in stone both have advantages in my opinion

for example you choose the critical route meaning you hit harder and more crit vs hitting less but more frequent if you choose alacrity route

 

scenario 1 : the enemy only have say 5k HP left and if you choose crit , maybe you get lucky and get the kills by critting , but if you choose alacrity , you mean hit less and that hit to enemy didnt kill him

 

or scenario 2: enemy less 10k and you can hit with 2 hits intead of 1 of your hard hitter and then you can finish the enemy instead of 1

so both are situational

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Hey,

 

i heard from some people that Alacrity is very usefull no matter what. even for melee classes without casttimes.

 

But for me thats hard to imagine. Even if i go for a high breakpoint of 1860+ alacrity for the 1,3s global cooldown (is it still this way?) That would be just 1 attack more in roughly 15 sec (and since you dont do all the time attacks (getting stunned...) i think its even less.

 

So why are so many people going for high Alacrity?

 

And what about crit? I read that 1796 is the max crit before mastery gets more usefull for dmg. (is that still the case) and what about classes that haave higher critt from th start like a rage jugger? And is attack power better or worse than crit?

 

Hope i can get some understanding how the stats work.

 

 

It is very important to point it out in advance we are talking about a dynamic PVP environment as opposed to pseudo-static boss fights in PVE. Both alacrity and accuracy fall under different evaluation.

 

All stats (crit, accuracy, alacrity, defense, etc.) have diminishing returns, that means as you increase the stat number, the less benefit/return you get, therefore you have to minmax your gear based on the class you play which includes the type of damage you inflict. Not only does alacrity affect DOT, but it also decreases your skill cooldown time and increases energy regeneration rate.

 

DOT (Damage Over Time) spread damage dealers may consider to aim for 1,3 GCD (Global Cooldown), but again - PVP is a dynamic environment, so any stun/mezz/root may hinder you to reproduce the APM (Action Per Minute) and - as a result- damage output on a training dummy, closing the gap between different GCD levels.

 

However, owing to diminishing returns, there is no point to put everything on crit (along with a slight ammount of accuracy if your main damage type is "white" (melee, ranged)), the 1,4 GCD (703 alacrity rating) is definitely an improvement for very little to sacrifise.

 

TL;DR: 703 alacrity is by all means an improvement over none at all for all DPS classes, even melee without cast times. Yes, you can even tell the difference both as sentinel (mara) or guardian (jugg).

Edited by varietasplus
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Hey,

 

i heard from some people that Alacrity is very usefull no matter what. even for melee classes without casttimes.

 

But for me thats hard to imagine. Even if i go for a high breakpoint of 1860+ alacrity for the 1,3s global cooldown (is it still this way?) That would be just 1 attack more in roughly 15 sec (and since you dont do all the time attacks (getting stunned...) i think its even less.

 

So why are so many people going for high Alacrity?

 

And what about crit? I read that 1796 is the max crit before mastery gets more usefull for dmg. (is that still the case) and what about classes that haave higher critt from th start like a rage jugger? And is attack power better or worse than crit?

 

Hope i can get some understanding how the stats work.

 

I periodically questioned the logic behind alacrity too however, after adjusting my stats on my arsenal merc my overall performance definitely improved when I went with the recommended alacrity and crit amounts.

 

I also found my rotations faster, smoother, and just more pleasant to run through. I tried an all critical/power build, just to avoid alacrity altogether for the fun of it, and the alacrity build just felt better and performed better too.

 

Without alacrity, the rotations are much slower, clunkier feeling I mean it's quite noticeable even though you wouldn't think it would be.

 

Sadly it's so expensive to change mods in and out, plus just having all the mods and gear pieces to try different builds is much more difficult than it used to be. At one time when I had every alt geared and had access to endless WZ comms that enabled me to buy any stat mod I wanted I tried lots of goofy builds just for the fun of it.

 

One time, I took my sage DPS and added every alacrity mod and piece of gear I could possibly give him even at the detriment of his crit, mastery, power and believe it or not in regs this build was quite viable and fun. lol my channels were so fast with my rock throws it was hard to not just spam that over and over it was so fun. :D

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i did a lots of testing about alacrity and critical rating for my main classes,

with the different specs.

 

for me, the most classes were much smoother with the high alacrity build.

the only expeption and just in pvp, was the arsenal merc. here i liked the

high crit build more.

 

comparing numbers in warzones is really hard. they all are different and

so you just can take some short parts to compare them. for example an

1 on 1, or a burst phase. even here it is not that easy with other debuffs,

or maybe buffs for the other player.

 

so dummies were a thing, to find out some specific differences. and here i

always did more dps with high alacrity builds. most of the time, even the burst

phases were with higher dps, compared to a high crit build. again the exeption:

the arsenal merc.

 

after all this testing around alacrity and switching from arsenal to io,

i did the same with mastery and critical rating. and here i found out for myself,

that every single point above 2k critical rating is just a waste of stats. so around

that number is fine. rest directly goes in mastery.

 

but you really should do that on your own. so something working for my, maybe won't

work for you. so don't just take the dps, but take a look into the ability tracking.

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Thanks for the replys ill try a few things.

 

One last Question why is Accuracy not important for a sorc?

 

It is important, but less so than other stats. It comes down to stat distribution. If you have enough of the most important stats, then adding accuracy would be good. But most of the time the stat pool is limited and used for Alacrity, crit and mastery.

 

I’ve not tested out the stat pool for 258 gear with 236-240 Augments, but it’s highly likely the pool is big enough to add some accuracy. (Someone who has the gear would know better).

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Thanks for the replys ill try a few things.

 

One last Question why is Accuracy not important for a sorc?

 

accuracy not important for sorc because they deal mostly yellow damage (force attack) and yellow damage cant miss on normal attack but if enemy pop defensive cooldown it can miss or reflect like assassin shroud negate yellow damage

only white damage can miss so accuracy sorc is not important for pvp but pve you still need it

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i disagree a little

 

high alacrity is the answer for dps in a long run. so it's efficient for pve.

 

PvP is more situational and the loss of damage per hit with high alacrity is real.

 

you don't have a full minute to kill an ennemy, you must be effective in a 20sec window to win a 1vs1 or put in real danger a heal, so hit the more possible.

 

and running high alacrity with 1.3 gcd is a real loss of damage in a short window.

 

and it depends to the spec, the cooldown of your abilities, the time you can have regarding you defensive abilities etc.

 

for example, PT AP needs for me full damage to be really efficient : quasi no abilities with cooldown, rail shot cooldown reseting each 6sec and bad defense. so for me 703 alacrity and 1.4sec is the min and max to reach.

 

some class and spec really need to do the best damage possible in few second and it's not alacrity the answer but power and crit cap. imho.

 

of course, it's different for heal specs.

Edited by Thaladan
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Great topic! Not enough of this kind of discussion. I've done a lot of experimentation and reached a few conclusions of my own on how I am gearing my characters for PVP.

 

I play different classes so I have different requirements and I make adjustments with that in mind. They all have different gear too so I make sure that when my stats are bolstered to 252 they are optimal.

 

TLDR version: If the class does any white damage then they get 5% accuracy. I hate missing key abilities in a rotation because my dps falls off a cliff. Next, I evaluate which alacrity cap I hit based on the class I use. Then I aim for the crit stat softcap and then get the remaining crit from mastery.

 

I have to say when it comes to alacrity I can't live without it. It's incredibly useful and I see it as one of those x-factors in PVP where the fastest gun in the west comes out on top.

 

For my ruffian scoundrel, I go up to the 1.3s gcd tier because I find the class is bottlenecked with the ramp-up times of damage and healing. How hard I hit or how much I heal isn't as useful as being able to crank out abilities as quickly as possible.

 

My vigilance guardian is also a dot class but I find it better to only hit the 1.4s gcd. When I tried 1.3s, I found myself waiting on abilities to come off cooldown often enough to make me think I wasn't getting the most out of my alacrity budget. Being able to hit harder worked a lot better for me so the extra stat budget went into obtaining optimal crit and mastery.

 

When my commando is playing dps, on either spec, I find a 1.4s gcd is enough. I've tried going with 1.3s gcd, but in the end, I found even though I liked the reduced gcd time, it felt like my hits weren't big enough to do real damage. It was better for me to dump the points into crit and mastery. For healing though, the 1.3s gcd was a no brainer. The extra points from accuracy go into alacrity and a healer is always casting something.

 

For my tactics vanguard, I need the class to hit like a truck. I only go to the 1.4s gcd. Crit is pretty important for this class to hit their best burst window.

 

Next up, is optimizing crit. Using the diminishing returns numbers from Ne'laa's guide, I hit the softcap for crit and then aim for the mastery crit cap. I found stacking too much crit meant my power wasn't high enough to produce those really big hits I wanted.

 

A couple of things to note. I realize crit is multiplicative, so there is an argument to be made about stacking it over mastery. I haven't seen too much compelling theorycrafting on what's optimal for PVP, so I've sort of just tried things out for myself to find out what works best for me. A lot of gearing for PVP is conditional on a number of things, so I think there's a grey area here where "the best" can mean many things.

Edited by Fellow-Canadian
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i disagree a little

 

high alacrity is the answer for dps in a long run. so it's efficient for pve.

 

PvP is more situational and the loss of damage per hit with high alacrity is real.

 

you don't have a full minute to kill an ennemy, you must be effective in a 20sec window to win a 1vs1 or put in real danger a heal, so hit the more possible.

 

and running high alacrity with 1.3 gcd is a real loss of damage in a short window.

 

and it depends to the spec, the cooldown of your abilities, the time you can have regarding you defensive abilities etc.

 

for example, PT AP needs for me full damage to be really efficient : quasi no abilities with cooldown, rail shot cooldown reseting each 6sec and bad defense. so for me 703 alacrity and 1.4sec is the min and max to reach.

 

some class and spec really need to do the best damage possible in few second and it's not alacrity the answer but power and crit cap. imho.

 

of course, it's different for heal specs.

 

Well that depends as well. Cause I run about what would come out to 10% alacrity on my ap pt and it helps alot in drawn out fights. Most good players are not going to let global them in a 20 sec window and I found that having a good amount of alacrity allows you to keep a flow of dmg going and still burst pretty high. I can hit a 30k+ energy burst, 20k+ railshot, and a 20k+ thermal det, plus shoulder rockets all within just a few seconds with that alacrity but my stuff will come back faster then someone who is a one and done build. Yes for 1v1 it is not ideal to take to much alacrity cause fights are faster. But heal tank matches can go on for minutes and getting your energy burst back faster and faster giving up very little burst in the long run is worth the investment. I do have a separate suit for 1v1 focused more on crit stack. It is all situational, but you will even see skank tanks put some alacrity in there to get through their rotation faster, even a 0.5 sec diff can be you hitting a target when its vulnerable and you hitting a target with a guard up now. Certain classes like the marksmen sniper as well hit very hard without having to crit stack so it is more beneficial in a longer fight to take alacrity. you may not get the 40k+ hit but you don't need that when you are hitting 33k-38k pretty consistently and more often.

Edited by steveerkcanjerk
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