Ok, simple question (this has been bugging me since they changed the tooltip for alacrity). Does Alacrity only influence channeled abilities or it also lowers the GCD for instants?

 

The tooltip says it reduces casting time on channeled spells AND reduces activation time. This is confusing, if it only influences channeled spells wouldn´t that be the same?

 

I´m trying to figure out because (just for leveling and pvp) I´m playing a Concealment Operative and if alacrity affected GCD it would be very useful, else it does nothing for us.

 

"Alacrity rating is a haste effect. It does seem to reduce the global cooldown on some channeled spells (even those that are only 1.5 seconds), but it does not seem to help for instant attacks. Not sure if this is a bug or if it just requires a lot of alacrity to get a noticeable difference in this area."

 

This is posted on several websites enhancing the fact that it´s not clear what alacrity really affects.

 

Any ideas?

I don't know, but as a sniper I didn't really focus on it much mainly because it does not increase energy regen.

Yh thats why I said I was concealment, it´s a complete different gameplay as I need to get out of stealth, hit as fast and hard as I can and go back to stealth, hence I don´t owrry as much about energy regen (I have the standard ones and those are enough). But it would be useful if I could hit more often logically.

Alacrity does not lower the GCD, and thus is worthless for instants.

Pfff.. just found this :S

 

Alacrity Rating - Decreases activation time for all abilities. This includes both casted abilities and channeled abilities.

 

Edit: Thanks to Saravi for pointing out in the comments that Alacrity Rating does indeed decrease the global cooldown, making the stat worth something for melee or instant-cast characters.

 

That´s the reason why I am confused with this crap :W

Essentially because of the 1.5s GCD, Alacrity is only useful for skills that take longer then 1.5s to cast or channel. Thats it. If you dont have a lot of these abilities, it probably isnt worth taking.

 

Just ask yourself. Do you have a lot of key abilities taking 1.5 or more seconds to cast? yes, then stack alacrity. No? then screw it.

Essentially because of the 1.5s GCD, Alacrity is only useful for skills that take longer then 1.5s to cast or channel. Thats it. If you dont have a lot of these abilities, it probably isnt worth taking.

 

Just ask yourself. Do you have a lot of key abilities taking 1.5 or more seconds to cast? yes, then stack alacrity. No? then screw it.

 

that isn't true. Alacrity has been tested to reduce the GCD on casted abilities of 1.5sec. But it is odd that a casted ability could be quicker than an instant.

that isn't true. Alacrity has been tested to reduce the GCD on casted abilities of 1.5sec. But it is odd that a casted ability could be quicker than an instant.

 

Do you have a link for that? I'd like to see that because then it would be somewhat beneficial. But in the current state, it only lowers activiation time (cast time) and the speed of channeled abilities. I know this for a fact (on a sorc at least) becuase I started getting more and more above 40 and it didn't affect my GCD. Now ops may be different but I doubt it.

 

And so there is no confusion...cast time has nothing to do with GCD. My 2.5 sec heal went to like 2.3 something with some Alacrity. My 3 sec channel whent to 2.9 something.

Do you have a link for that? I'd like to see that because then it would be somewhat beneficial. But in the current state, it only lowers activiation time (cast time) and the speed of channeled abilities. I know this for a fact (on a sorc at least) becuase I started getting more and more above 40 and it didn't affect my GCD. Now ops may be different but I doubt it.

 

And so there is no confusion...cast time has nothing to do with GCD. My 2.5 sec heal went to like 2.3 something with some Alacrity. My 3 sec channel whent to 2.9 something.

 

 

Like i said, it does nothing for instant abilities, only abilities with cast times. But it does lower the GCD on cast time abilties with less than a 1.5s cast time.

Edited December 30, 2011 by bodatious

Now that's some cool stuff. Thanks for the link. Let's hope that sticks and isn't hit with the nerf bat.

 

And so there is no confusion...cast time has nothing to do with GCD. My 2.5 sec heal went to like 2.3 something with some Alacrity. My 3 sec channel whent to 2.9 something.

 

Snipe has a cast time of 1.5 seconds. When it gets reduced to 1.4 it sure as heck has something to do with the GCD.

 

Not all cast time abilities are >1.5 second cast time.

 

Like i said, it does nothing for instant abilities, only abilities with cast times. But it does lower the GCD on cast time abilties with less than a 1.5s cast time.

 

Forgive me for not instantly taking your word with this, but have you tested it out in-game? the video you link is from 9 months ago, it's very possible it's changed since.

 

From my own experience it seems it does not. I activated a snipe yesterday in one second and it seemed like I had to wait an additional half second to start using my next ability.

 

Let me stress that I am not calling you wrong or myself right, as I definitely was not trying to test the GCD so I could be mistaken. I'm merely pointing out that beta videos, especially from a build that long ago, does not prove that this is how it currently works.

I really hate to be an *** but simply buy the trinket with Alacrity. Pop that trinket and see your GCDs reduce. It is such a huge surge of Alacrity that is hard to not see what it does.

Channeled abilities refers to abilities in which the effect takes place during the channel time. (Such as Diagnostic Scan for healing Operatives, I'm not a Sniper, but I think Series of Shots is also a channeled ability for Snipers, correct me if I'm mistaken). The energy is consumed at the beginning of the channel time.

 

Activated abilities refers to abilities in which the effect takes place after the activation time. (Such as Kolto Injection and Ambush). Energy is consumed at the end of the activation time.

 

That's why the tooltip specifically says both. There is a difference between activation and channeled abilities. They both have a channel/activation bar, but they're still different from one another.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Azkit

the main thing with alacrity is thias press k and check the tree you selected if there is no alacrity in it chance are you gain little by it but if it is in it might want to get everything in that tree about it and in other tree related to alacrity on (no stat on gear tho)some class might benefit if they feel their rotation is way off etc .this will help going from 1.5 to 1.36 doesnt sound like much but it doesnt take a lot to be either healing or dying.one question:

 

does alacrity affect heat cooldown?

like when i overheat?does the cooldown rate goes faster with with alacrity or not really hard to say since this affect all skill etc but isnt directly related to this?good thread by the way!

Technically, alacrity doesn't reduce the GCD, the GCD just isn't triggered in the first place for abilites with a 1.5 second cast time. If you reduce the cast time below 1.5 seconds you can use abilites faster then the GCD would normally allow you to, but you aren't reducing it, you just aren't triggering it at all. This is why it doesn't help for instant casts but does for 1.5 second casts.

Technically, alacrity doesn't reduce the GCD, the GCD just isn't triggered in the first place for abilites with a 1.5 second cast time. If you reduce the cast time below 1.5 seconds you can use abilites faster then the GCD would normally allow you to, but you aren't reducing it, you just aren't triggering it at all. This is why it doesn't help for instant casts but does for 1.5 second casts.

 

This sounds right to me.

That and if you are spamming the ability you will notice it doesn't cast right away after.

I have my own question about alacrity and would be particularly interested to hear from lvl 50s who've stacked the stat quite high. I'm a healer, and to date have been trying to stack crit chance and surge wherever and whenever possible. Most healing gear however seems to suggest I want power and alacrity.

 

At the moment, I have 122 alacrity (from somewhere!) which confers a 4.2% cast speed increase. My questions then are:

 

- Is alacrity directly proportional and linear with the percentage decrease to cast times (eg. approx 29 points of alacrity = 1% cast speed)?

- What is the approx. highest amount of alacrity I could expect if all my gear stacked it (in place of the crit/surge I currently wear)?

- What is approx. the max casting speed reduction one could expect, at lvl 50 in alacrity gear?

 

I currently sport approx. 40% crit chance and 85% crit multiplier, so regularly see large healing crits which to me makes a lot of sense as an effective method of to healing well. If the maximum realistic cast speed decrease is 25-33%, then it may be worth looking into swapping my higher crit chance for a fair cast speed reduction. If it's no more than 10% however I think I'll stick with more frequent and potent critical heals.

I currently sport approx. 40% crit chance and 85% crit multiplier, so regularly see large healing crits which to me makes a lot of sense as an effective method of to healing well. If the maximum realistic cast speed decrease is 25-33%, then it may be worth looking into swapping my higher crit chance for a fair cast speed reduction. If it's no more than 10% however I think I'll stick with more frequent and potent critical heals.

 

I hit fifty this past weekend and have been healing spec'd since 27. I can't answer your question directly with hard numbers yet, but my general feeling is that--at best--alacrity will let you (try to) spam kolto injection a little faster. That by itself wouldn't necessarily make it a bad thing--you get to pick when to cast next, but if it cost you a ton of power or crit + surge...then you're gobbling more power to do smaller heals, faster.

 

I suppose that's why power and alacrity seem to arrive on lots of the same gear. I recently put power augments on everything with a slot, and grabbed the 52/endurance +240 power clicky relic and am going to see how that goes for a bit!

 

Subbing this thread to see what information comes out

 

edit: oh, and when I get home I'll post my alacrity/speed to see if it helps determine whether it's a linear relationship.

Edited January 24, 2012 by OldSwab

It's on all the healing gear and not found on the dps gear, both pvp and pve sets.

 

That should give you an idea what its for.

Ok, simple question (this has been bugging me since they changed the tooltip for alacrity). Does Alacrity only influence channeled abilities or it also lowers the GCD for instants?

 

The tooltip says it reduces casting time on channeled spells AND reduces activation time. This is confusing, if it only influences channeled spells wouldn´t that be the same?

 

I´m trying to figure out because (just for leveling and pvp) I´m playing a Concealment Operative and if alacrity affected GCD it would be very useful, else it does nothing for us.

 

 

 

This is posted on several websites enhancing the fact that it´s not clear what alacrity really affects.

 

Any ideas?

 

Alacrity has NO EFFECT whatsoever for Concealment Ops. All of your combat abilities are instant cast, and your GCD is not effected by alacrity either. Unless you use more casted abilities than instant abilities, alacrity would be a completely wasted stat for you.

I am curious why any op would even want alacrity then, if this stat doesn't lower the gcd for your hots it seems worthless to me for pvp. Yet still it is on all the healing pvp gear ... Edited January 25, 2012 by bkizz

Forgive me for not instantly taking your word with this, but have you tested it out in-game? the video you link is from 9 months ago, it's very possible it's changed since.

 

Forgive me for not Americanizing my dates. The video footage is from 3 December, 2011 (3/12/11), posted 6 December, 2011 (6/12/11) and I never expected it to get more than a handful of views from the folks I was discussing alacrity with at the time I (hastily) threw it together, so it's not the easiest thing to follow.

 

Alacrity certainly does bring the "GCD" of abilities with an activation time less than 1.5s (but greater than zero) down to whatever the new activation time of the ability is. With relics and adrenals popped, I can fire off Healing Scans and Power Shots in 1.1s and it's pretty much impossible to miss that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DELAY (let alone a 0.4 second gap) before I can activate another one or something else.

 

BUT!

 

Alacrity doesn't lower the GCD of instant abilities or channeled abilities. That stays at 1.5s.

Edited January 27, 2012 by ChiaraT

Alacrity does not lower the GCD, and thus is worthless for instants.

 

sorry to sound like a nub but what is GCD meen?

or to save me some time a link to a web page for commonly used terms in MMO's