I always wondered if this stat is useful for healing. Will make a difference with heals or should I stick with Critical, Surge, and Power for the most part? Other guildies keep telling me that stat is useless for heals.

I always wondered if this stat is useful for healing. Will make a difference with heals or should I stick with Critical, Surge, and Power for the most part? Other guildies keep telling me that stat is useless for heals.

 

It's supposedly planned to get a re-work in the future. Right now it has benefits but they are not near the benefits obtained from other stats.

Edited June 9, 2012 by Codek

You get a choice between alacrity/surge in end game gear. Get about 250 alacrity then the rest surge.

 

Once you get fully geared you will see what I mean by having only a choice between those two stats. No way around it.

It's supposedly planned to get a re-work in the future. Right now it has benefits but they are not near the benefits obtained from other stats.

 

This, scrub alacrity out anywhere you can.

 

 

Also I'm fairly certain you can always avoid it( long-term, intermediary gear aside). I'm in a smattering of black hole and campaign at the minute with 0 alacrity.

Edited June 9, 2012 by CaptainApop

Personally, I have found my sweet spot to be ~10% alacrity. The difference between a 1.8 second heal and a 2.0 second heal feels huge to me. I can cite specific situations where even .1 second slower would have resulted in a death; though to be fair, had I recognized a few of those situations quicker (or not gotten casual about my TA stack), I could have started my heal sooner (or used SP), and it wouldn't have been that close.

 

I've also found (on my Med-Op) that much higher alacrity results in me burning power too quick, so for me 10% is the happy medium. I believe (not in game to check) that ~200 alacrity from gear gives me the 6% needed on top of the talented 4%.

Edited June 9, 2012 by ssfish

You gotta remember though if that 10% alacrity has been power instead (assuming crit and surge are where they should be) would the situation have even occured?

You need alot of alacrity for what's not an immediately appreciable gain. Then there's the energy issue.

Edited June 9, 2012 by CaptainApop

You gotta remember though if that 10% alacrity has been power instead (assuming crit and surge are where they should be) would the situation have even occured?

Ultimately, you can only trade between Surge and Alacrity, not Power and Alacrity.

Ultimately, you can only trade between Surge and Alacrity, not Power and Alacrity.

 

Yeah I kind of re-realised this when I started looking at my gear again.

I'd err on the side of surge for ops though. Since alacrity only really affects one ability (kolto injection).

The rest are instants or in the case of kolto infusion, already have a 1.5s cast time.

 

Diagnostic scan would get some benefit I suppose but you'd never notice it.

Edited June 10, 2012 by CaptainApop

Yeah I kind of re-realised this when I started looking at my gear again.

I'd err on the side of surge for ops though. Since alacrity only really affects one ability (kolto injection).

The rest are instants or in the case of kolto infusion, already have a 1.5s cast time.

 

Diagnostic scan would get some benefit I suppose but you'd never notice it.

 

Note to clarify (as people seem to often get confused about it), Alacrity affects (and only affects) all cast times (including 1.5s cast times) and channets. Cast times / channels do not have a global cool down, so Alacrity always benefits them fully.

 

This however does not change the fact that it is next to useless

Note to clarify (as people seem to often get confused about it), Alacrity affects (and only affects) all cast times (including 1.5s cast times) and channets. Cast times / channels do not have a global cool down, so Alacrity always benefits them fully.

 

This however does not change the fact that it is next to useless

 

I did not actually realise this but your right. Seems the "GCD" you get shown immediately drops once the cast finishes.

Due to diminishing returns on stats, you do want some alacrity, but not as much as the other stats. 300 surge, 200 alacrity would be superior to 500 surge, 0 alacrity. However, you generally get enough alacrity from non-modable gear (implants, ear pieces, belts, bracers).

I heard most people prefer the following priority:

 

1) Expertise (for PvP)

2) Aim / Cunning / Willpower

3) Power

4) Crit / Surge (until they hit cap)

 

And pack in alacrity along the way where it is convenient to do so.

1) Expertise (for PvP)

2) Aim / Cunning / Willpower

3) Power

4) Crit / Surge (until they hit cap)

 

 

There is a ratio where power is greater then primary stat, A lot of the black hole/campaign mods that are 58 primary 41 pwr, are better then the 60 something primary 14 pwr or w/e they are.

 

Due to diminishing returns on stats, you do want some alacrity, but not as much as the other stats. 300 surge, 200 alacrity would be superior to 500 surge, 0 alacrity. However, you generally get enough alacrity from non-modable gear (implants, ear pieces, belts, bracers).

 

Pretty much this ^. Embrace a bit of alacrity, and dont worry about your energy to much... if you have your stim boost running you can get back to a good number in a few GCDs with DS easily enough as an OP. If you're merc healer...well pray for the day that they make rapid shots vent heat for you.

I've had issues with this recently as well while leveling my sorc healer, wondering if alacrity can actually hurt my efficiency. I can usually keep everyone alive as long as I have force to spend, but wouldn't alacrity cause abilities like Innervate to be less effective? It heals for X instantly and an another X per second for 3 seconds, so if its channeled time gets cut to less then 3 seconds, wouldn't I loose out on the last heal and thus a quarter of the HP it would have healed?

I've had issues with this recently as well while leveling my sorc healer, wondering if alacrity can actually hurt my efficiency. I can usually keep everyone alive as long as I have force to spend, but wouldn't alacrity cause abilities like Innervate to be less effective? It heals for X instantly and an another X per second for 3 seconds, so if its channeled time gets cut to less then 3 seconds, wouldn't I loose out on the last heal and thus a quarter of the HP it would have healed?

 

Nah it'll do the same number of ticks, faster.

surge has a much steeper knee in terms of diminishing returns. if you graph the formula for surge, you will see a very hard knee in the graph around 200-250 surge. the alactiry and crit graphs do not have a very dramatic knee at all. So it would make more sense in terms of maximizing to get surge near the soft cap, and then for for alacrity since you will continue to get more effect. however, since most think alacrity is throw-away anyway... you might just want to spend 300 points on an extra 3% multioplier if tahts what you want to do.

 

multiplier: 30*(1-(1-0.1e-1/(.3))^((1/50)*sr/(.11)))

reduction factor: .3*(1-(1-0.1e-1/(.3))^((1/50)*ar/(.55)))

crit chance: 30*(1-(1-0.1e-1/(.3))^((1/50)*cr/(.45)))

Nah it'll do the same number of ticks, faster.

 

Ah, fair enough, I was told it reduced the amount of time spent channeling, but kept the ticks at the same speed. Ty

As dipstik said, it is easy to get too much Surge. Surge got nerfed pretty hard early on in their constant efforts to eliminate burst from the game, so there is a very steep diminishing return on Surge. Anything over 300 will show negligible results.

 

You can gain some benefit from Alacrity, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind with it.

 

If you cast faster, the regen you generate while casting will decrease, which means the effective cost of the ability increases. ie:

 

Medical Probe costs 3 Ammo, takes 2s to cast, and you regen 0.8 Ammo per second while casting. Let's look at this with 0% Alacrity and 50% Alacrity (impossible, but easy to demonstrate the effect):

 

0% Effective Cost = 3 - 2*0.8 = 1.4 Ammo

50% Effective Cost = 3 - 1*0.8 = 2.2 Ammo

 

However, if you have 50% alacrity and cast MP then pause 1s, you are at the same place total.

 

This means that while you can spam abilities faster, you can't actually use any more of them in the same time. It gives you increased burst, but not increased total HPS over the same time. You need to Burst - Pause -Burst - Pause.

 

However, there is one more problem that rears its head, which is especially bad for Commandos but also applies to a lesser degree to Sc/Op/Merc. This is that chain spam can drop you into a lower regen window when the same number of casts without Alacrity would not have done so. As a result, a Burst-Pause-Burst-Pause cycle can, if used frequently, actually result in lower DPS over the course of a fight. This is because spamming Ammo using abilities and following them with HS requires more total HS casts and more time to get back to 10+ Ammo than weaving HS in with the Ammo using abilities.

 

These problems were made more extreme by the reduced efficiency that came with 1.2, and most of the Alacrity fans have abandoned that style of play. You simply can't afford to cast enough heals in a row anymore to make it worth the trade-off.

 

So, in short, yes you should take Alacrity, but only because they made high levels of Surge worthless and you don't have any options. However, once you are forced to take Alacrity, be more aware of your Ammo and take time to pause as needed or weave in more HS to keep from dropping too low using your old rotation.

This means that while you can spam abilities faster, you can't actually use any more of them in the same time. It gives you increased burst, but not increased total HPS over the same time. You need to Burst - Pause -Burst - Pause.

 

Higher burst gives you more hps over the time in most of the new encounters.

Kephess HM Video

 

Burst - Move (pause) - Burst - Move - Burst - Move

 

With high alacrity (i have 12%+5% from FR) you need to be careful, but you get the extra time to move/reg and you can react faster to some "oh ****!" situations. Commando heal get biggest profits from alacrity because you need to stand still to be effective and high alacrity rating and alacrity skills reduce this time.

Edited June 28, 2012 by xexex

Higher burst gives you more hps over the time in most of the new encounters.

Kephess HM Video

 

Burst - Move (pause) - Burst - Move - Burst - Move

 

With high alacrity (i have 12%+5% from FR) you need to be careful, but you get the extra time to move/reg and you can react faster to some "oh ****!" situations. Commando heal get biggest profits from alacrity because you need to stand still to be effective and high alacrity rating and alacrity skills reduce this time.

 

That's certainly possible, I haven't actually played this game in 2 months now, and I'm not up on the latest encounters. It seems strange to design the fights around burst while doing everything they can to remove burst capability, but I long ago gave up on expecting a lot of planning or foresight from this Dev team.