So according to the guides I've read, Alacrity is one of the stats I need raise in order to decrease the cool downs on my abilities. Makes sense, only the gear you get from the PvE gearing vendor doesn't give Alacrity, nor am I able to get Alacrity augments from the GTN (in fact the GTN on my server is quite literally bereft of items in every category), so I could use some advice on an alternative strategy for increasing my Alacrity rating, please.

So according to the guides I've read, Alacrity is one of the stats I need raise in order to decrease the cool downs on my abilities. Makes sense, only the gear you get from the PvE gearing vendor doesn't give Alacrity, nor am I able to get Alacrity augments from the GTN (in fact the GTN on my server is quite literally bereft of items in every category), so I could use some advice on an alternative strategy for increasing my Alacrity rating, please.

 

If I knew your level range it would be easier to point you in the right direction so I'll just briefly go over the options for obtaining alacrity, If you're using the gearing vendors on fleet that would indicate you're already 65.

 

If you're 65 you can obtain alacrity from the head peice, from implants, and from earpiece. [you'll have to look through them to find the one with alacrity because they also come with other tertiary stats as well. You can suppliment this by getting the head piece multiple times and simply taking out the alacrity enhancement and putting it to other pieces of gear that have enhancement slots. [Depending on your spec/build] This applies to the com gear vendors as well as the token peice vendors. [Token gear being the better optimized gear choice].

 

Additionally, you can do the same should you happen to win non-token gear drops in operations and some purple gear drops from HM FPs. that have alacrity enhancements.

 

You can also check the GtN and see if any one is selling alacrity enhacements stand alone or in modable gear of the appropriate level.

 

I'm not sure why you are having difficulty finding alacrity augments on the GTN. If that is server related, not much can be done about that short of server hopping. On the Shadlowlands server, you dont run into that sort of difficulty. I've never encountered a problem buying augs of any stat from the GTN. In your case, if buying them from the GTN is not option you can either try to find a crafter to make them for you and buy them directly from the crafter or learn the appropriate crew skills yourself that will allow you to craft the augs yourself. [i know nothing about crafting so I'm not sure what that would entail, only that it's possible.].

 

If you are still leveling, you can get alacrity enhancements from modification vendors and from GTN as aforementioned.

 

Hope this helps some. Good luck to you.

If I knew your level range it would be easier to point you in the right direction so I'll just briefly go over the options for obtaining alacrity, If you're using the gearing vendors on fleet that would indicate you're already 65.

 

If you're 65 you can obtain alacrity from the head peice, from implants, and from earpiece. [you'll have to look through them to find the one with alacrity because they also come with other tertiary stats as well. You can suppliment this by getting the head piece multiple times and simply taking out the alacrity enhancement and putting it to other pieces of gear that have enhancement slots. [Depending on your spec/build] This applies to the com gear vendors as well as the token peice vendors. [Token gear being the better optimized gear choice].

 

Additionally, you can do the same should you happen to win non-token gear drops in operations and some purple gear drops from HM FPs. that have alacrity enhancements.

 

You can also check the GtN and see if any one is selling alacrity enhacements stand alone or in modable gear of the appropriate level.

 

I'm not sure why you are having difficulty finding alacrity augments on the GTN. If that is server related, not much can be done about that short of server hopping. On the Shadlowlands server, you dont run into that sort of difficulty. I've never encountered a problem buying augs of any stat from the GTN. In your case, if buying them from the GTN is not option you can either try to find a crafter to make them for you and buy them directly from the crafter or learn the appropriate crew skills yourself that will allow you to craft the augs yourself. [i know nothing about crafting so I'm not sure what that would entail, only that it's possible.].

 

If you are still leveling, you can get alacrity enhancements from modification vendors and from GTN as aforementioned.

 

Hope this helps some. Good luck to you.

 

Level 65, and that's the point, I can't. The glowing data crystal vendor gear doesn't have alacrity on anything. It's Critical/Power and the market on my server is non-existent. I'm not sure what's going on but for all intents and purposes my server appears dead.

 

What I was thinking was replacing the mod or enhancement with Alacrity rather than Critical but I can't seem to find any higher than level 40 and the ones the vendor armour contains are level 42 so I'm dropping stats across the board.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Ulfrik_Wulfgar

Level 65, and that's the point, I can't. The glowing data crystal vendor gear doesn't have alacrity on anything. It's Critical/Power and the market on my server is non-existent. I'm not sure what's going on but for all intents and purposes my server appears dead.

 

What I was thinking was replacing the mod or enhancement with Alacrity rather than Critical but I can't seem to find any higher than level 40 and the ones the vendor armour contains are level 42 so I'm dropping stats across the board.

 

That's very puzzling, not saying I don't believe you, only that I can't think of a reason why that should be. I have double checked and all the vendor gear both com and token [208-224-224 being only token of course] and all the gear has alacrity enhancements in the head peice and all the earpieces and implants have those with alacrity as one of the choices. I would think this would be standardized across all servers. It's not like your a different class and maybe different class vendors might have different stat choices [which i don't think they do, just making a more generalized thought], you're a marauder and marauders benefit greatly from alacrity [some specs more than others, but still]

 

I Agree, using level 42 enhancements when your 65 would be a big stat loss and I'm not sure it would be worth it for the added alacrity without knowing the values in question. Let's say for example that to if you swap out a level 65 enhancement [that doesn't have alacrity] with a level 42 enhancement that does have alacrity would result in a 15 point damage loss. and a 200 hp loss for the benefit of an alacrity increase, this might be temporarily worth it if your current alacrity is only at 3 or 4 percent, because the alacrity enhancement at those levels might up your alacrity to 5.5-6 percent. But if your current alacrity is at say 7 or 8 percent, and swapping in the level 42 alacrity enhancement is only gonna raise your alacrity by half of one percent so 7.5 or 8.5 percent respectfully, than no, its probably not worth it imo. I'm no mathimatician tho so these values are examples to make the point and values in fact may be different, so you'd have to use your own judgement.

 

The solution here, however, is not whether this is worth it or not, because any way you cut it your gimping yourself one way or another by having to employ level 42 enhancements at level 65. Honestly, if your server is so dead that you cant aquire very standard equiptment, gear, mods, enhancements, and augs, you really should get the hell off that server hehe. Honestly, I get the "love of home" concept, and not wanting to abandon what you have always known, plus the people or friends you have made, but it's literally costing you viability of game play.

 

Thing is, if all you're really into is playing vanilla storylines [even post chapter 3], doing heroics and some FPs, you'll get by ok either way. But if you are, or would like to get into raiding, you need the augs and the proper level gear. Now, one enhancement won't likely spell disaster for you, but most raiders will make a stink if you are not fully auged out and not using appropriate level gear. I doubt you'd get kicked out of a raid for the one enhancement, but without being auged/ or having an appropriate level of alacrity for your class and spec [relatively speaking] will likely get you kicked from a raid, despite the fact that its not your fault.

 

If you find that improvements to this lack of availability for gearing up properly aren't forthcoming, you might consider transfering to a more populated server. Harbinger and the Shadowlands are two of the most populated servers that you might consider. Just some food for thought.

O.K., I just checked and you're right, the vendor does sell Alacrity-related items, which sacrifice power and accuracy in return, however I can make that up with augments. That being said, it's just Earpiece and Implant which would take me to 456 alacrity; is that going to be enough?

 

As for the server, Republic Fleet at peak time - 6 people. Most planets 1 or 2 people, so yes, its as dead as a dodo but I can't afford to transfer nine characters onto another server.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Ulfrik_Wulfgar

O.K., I just checked and you're right, the vendor does sell Alacrity-related items, which sacrifice power and accuracy in return, however I can make that up with augments. That being said, it's just Earpiece and Implant which would take me to 456 alacrity; is that going to be enough?

 

As for the server, Republic Fleet at peak time - 6 people. Most planets 1 or 2 people, so yes, its as dead as a dodo but I can't afford to transfer nine characters onto another server.

 

As im not sure what spec you are I'll give you the recommended amounts for each spec and gear level. Please note that these values come from Bant's gearing guide and are the product of his work and findings and are generally accepted to be the "standard" by which to have optimal effectiveness overall for each respective spec. I am quoting from his guide directly. I have found personaly that by using his recommended stat values I have benefited greatly from them. These are recommendations and have some leeway,but generally its a good idea to get close to these values. 20-30 point differences wont make or break you, but with regard to accuracy you definately want to have at least 100 percent in that stat [ which comes to 110 accuracy as the ideal goal,meaning when you look at your character sheet where it lists your accuracy you want the stat to read "110", a little bit over is fine,its not possible to get it to read "110.00" mine reads "110.18" percent. 109.95 -109.99" is for all intents and purposes as good as 110 percent. Better to have it a little over than a little under tho. As to alacrity -

 

In 216 rated gear [ this implies most if not all your gear is rated at 216" the total point value for your alacrity stat you're shooting for, if you are using the accuracy stim is -

 

Annihilation - 900 alacrity

Carnage - 681 alacrity

Fury - 900 alacrity

-----------------------------------------

220 Gear

 

Annihilation - 946 alacrity

Carnage - 758 alacrity

Fury - 960 alacrity

------------------------------------------

 

224 Gear

 

Annihilation - 1015 alacrity

Carnage - 825 alacrity

Fury - 993 alacrity

-------------------------------------

 

If you are using the mastery stim, the alacrity values you are shooting for are as follows -

 

216

 

Annihilation - 833 alacrity

Carnage - 730 alacrity

Fury - 827 alacrity

--------------------------------------

 

220 Gear

 

Annihilation - 904 alacrity

Carnage - 772 alacrity

Fury - 873 alacrity

------------------------------------

 

224 Gear

 

Annihilation - 942 alacrity

Carnage - 825 alacrity

Fury - 913 alacrity

 

------------------------------------------------

 

The link to Bant's guide, which is invaluable resourse, and covers all stat priorties for all classes and all specs can be found at - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=847112

 

 

It can seem a bit overwhelming at first, you might say to yourself "How am I sopposed to reach all these values", and it can take some time. Just do your best, theres no rush. If you are under just look at as a work in progress. It took me a while to get fully 224 geared, everyones in the same boat.

Remember too that these are recommendations and not written in stone. Its not like you'll suck if you havent hit all the recommended values so don't let that be a concern for you. Most people tend not to have every single thing optimized perfectly for various reasons.

 

The only stat I would say is none negotiable is accuracy and it trumps all other stats in terms of what you want to address first and foremost. If you have to sacrifice some crit chance in order to get your accuracy to 110 percent,than its the right move to make. It doesnt really matter how much crit you have if your missing, and missed attacks are straight dps losses. It might not seem like much, but even missing 1 percent more of the time over the course of a fight can add up to alot of damage lost. As a Marauder[or Sentinel if your a pub dog =p] damage is all you are about. And as things stand, Marauders are the best damage dealers [at least in theory,individual's skill level play a huge part of course]in the galaxy [and the game].

 

As I'm sure you know, Marauders have a higher skill set requirement compared to other DPS classes to hit the full potential of what the class is capable of putting out. And while many may argue, stats and gear aren't the end all for putting out good dps, stats and geared are the foundation upon which the skill of the player is set upon. Skill is certainly the more important factor, it doesnt matter what gear you have if your not skilled enough to put it to proper use, but it is the gear that determines what the possibilties are to be able to achieve, it sets the limits of what is possible to achieve if put to proper use.

 

I hope this helps.

 

P.S. Get the hell off that server heh, thats not even enough people to do an operation with heh.

Mate, I mean no offence but that guide may as well be in Greek. I'm not from a WoW background, all this rotations and gearing and stats ******** is an anathema to me. I play games for fun, not to be a mathematician. Thanks for your help though, it's appreciated. However, the underlying question stands. Since I can't get that high Alacrity from the gear itself and since my server is dead and the GTN with it, how can I make that up? If it helps, I'm Watchman discipline and level 65. As for the server, like I said, I can't afford 9000 cc for the transfer of all my toons so I'm stuck until Bioware get off their arses and merge my server with an active one.

 

My gear so far consists of an 1x Exarch Savant Implant. 1x Outland Proficient Implant and a Zakuulan Durasteel Quick Savant Device Earpiece,plus 1x Alacrity augment 28, and my Alacrity is 329. Now even if I upgrade to full Exarch in those areas (230) I'm only increasing my Alacrity by 192 totalling 521, significantly below what you recommend. The only armour that provide Alacrity bonuses is for Sage/Sorc but takes a hit to Endurance. According to every guide I've read, according to my own experiences with other characters I have, you make up this shortfall with Augments, but since there are none available, I'm stuffed.

 

So, perhaps I can come at this from another angle. What's the crew skill required for making Augments? Perhaps I could make them myself?

Edited September 6, 2016 by Ulfrik_Wulfgar

Seems you really have an issue there. If i may suggest, if you didnt click someones refferal yet then let your sub run out and click someones refferal to get one free transfer and at least transfer your main to a populated server.

 

Also, if there are few people on fleet shout out of groufinder ops, at peak times you might get 8 ppl together, you mostly dont need 2 tanks and healers. Overall you can do SM ops with 4 ppl. Get those ppl and you can do an ops and get 216 token gear for free which is best for you atm. Then when EV is Prio ops jjust again go in with 4 ppl and you can get the 224 gear, its easy.

 

What server are you on anyway?

Seems you really have an issue there. If i may suggest, if you didnt click someones refferal yet then let your sub run out and click someones refferal to get one free transfer and at least transfer your main to a populated server.

 

Also, if there are few people on fleet shout out of groufinder ops, at peak times you might get 8 ppl together, you mostly dont need 2 tanks and healers. Overall you can do SM ops with 4 ppl. Get those ppl and you can do an ops and get 216 token gear for free which is best for you atm. Then when EV is Prio ops jjust again go in with 4 ppl and you can get the 224 gear, its easy.

 

What server are you on anyway?

 

Tomb of Freedon Naad, I think it's called and the most I've seen on the fleet at peak time is 6. There used to be dozens. I tried the PvP server the other day, not because I like PvP in this game (I don't, it's atrocious) but because of an Alliance mission and after a little over two hours I left the queue because I still hadn't got in a warzone. Put it this way. It's only just entering peak time in the UK and my server has 7 people on the fleet. I just made a character on Red Eclipse server (I think it's called) and there are 134 people. I don't know if people are taking a break until KoTET is released but last time I played, earlier this year, it was far, far more active than this so whatever is going on is a recent thing. Hopefully it'll pick up. I've been on this server since the game was released.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Ulfrik_Wulfgar

I don't know if people are taking a break until KoTET is released.

 

Was a great server back in its glory days, however Bioware made a wave of cheap setver transfers and people fled to Red Eclipse which is the biggest server now. Progenitor did survive the purge due to many long time (no life) players. I have 2 toons on TOFN and can do some stuff if u want tomorrow, just for fun.

 

People also left the game, there isnt much to do and KOTET might be the definitive death of the game. We will see.

gearing up can be confusing if you don't know how all the states work and relate to each other. luckily, with 4.0, they changed the way surge is gained and that made gearing up a lot easier. essentially, the first thing that you need to understand is that it doesn't matter where a stat is located (head, ear, augment, etc.) there are a couple of exceptions to this, like avoiding accuracy augments if possible. you can use the recommendations from bant's post exactly by placing the number of enhancements, augs, etc. that he recommends, but it is not neccessary. rather, pay attention to the stat totals and try to get as close to those as your gear level allows, while also keeping the correct proportions (keep crit/alacrity at ~ 1.5/1 ratio). in terms of priority, you want to get your accuracy to 100%/110% asap, then you can look at the rest of your stats to see where you are short. most likely you will need crit and alacrity, so those will be your augment choices. good luck!

Mate, I mean no offence but that guide may as well be in Greek. I'm not from a WoW background, all this rotations and gearing and stats ******** is an anathema to me. I play games for fun, not to be a mathematician. Thanks for your help though, it's appreciated. However, the underlying question stands. Since I can't get that high Alacrity from the gear itself and since my server is dead and the GTN with it, how can I make that up? If it helps, I'm Watchman discipline and level 65. As for the server, like I said, I can't afford 9000 cc for the transfer of all my toons so I'm stuck until Bioware get off their arses and merge my server with an active one.

 

My gear so far consists of an 1x Exarch Savant Implant. 1x Outland Proficient Implant and a Zakuulan Durasteel Quick Savant Device Earpiece,plus 1x Alacrity augment 28, and my Alacrity is 329. Now even if I upgrade to full Exarch in those areas (230) I'm only increasing my Alacrity by 192 totalling 521, significantly below what you recommend. The only armour that provide Alacrity bonuses is for Sage/Sorc but takes a hit to Endurance. According to every guide I've read, according to my own experiences with other characters I have, you make up this shortfall with Augments, but since there are none available, I'm stuffed.

 

So, perhaps I can come at this from another angle. What's the crew skill required for making Augments? Perhaps I could make them myself?

 

Firstly, my apologies for all the technical aspects I threw at you, I shouldn't have assumed that you'd understand all the jargon. It can seem pretty technical sounding. You'll get it quick tho, it's really not as bad as it looks at first. Let me try to make this a bit simpler so its not throwing a ton of stuff at you.

 

I recommend using the accuracy/critical stim above using the mastery/power stim. I've used both and while there isn't a tremendous difference, I did find I came out a bit better using the acc/crit stim [ I was able to free up an entire augment even after I had met all other required levels of other stats which was a nice little suprise to put wherever I wanted. This will make meeting the accuracy requirement easier, you wont need any accuracy augs this way. You will need to use a few power or mastery augs to make up the damage lose from not using the mastery/power stim [this goes against the "no power/mastery" augs, but when all is said and done you will come out slightly ahead even damage wise.]

 

Use critical color crystals in both sabers.

 

Additionally, in my experience, I have found that having your alacrity above 10 percent results in a slight dps loss. This does go against what is recommended. I have no science to back this up, this is just in my experience. For the record I'm one of the highest parsing Marauders in the game [7.2k range - Parsley]. I also use a slightly modified rotation that I've come up with trial and error. This however is in Carnage spec, so I can't swear by these values in concentraition. I merely point it out to demonstraite that some of the recommend values don't need to be adhered to exactly. Play around with some of the numbers a bit if you like, sometimes a persons style is just a bit different and they find a slight variation works better for them personaly. I wouldn't recommend any big differences from the recommended values however.

 

Currently I'm running 10 percent alacrity, with a Crit chance of 40 percent and critical multiplyer at 70 percent. These values might work slightly better for me because the rotation I use is a slight variant of the norm. I parse a great deal [dummy and Operations] and this set up simply works better for me, my numbers are better this way than when I had the values exactly as bant's guide has listed. [Again, not a huge difference, just slight. Bant's pretty much on the ball with everything generally, and you can't go wrong with his recommendations.

 

With regard to obtaining the augs you want. Under the circumstances you have on your server, I would recommend taking the necessary crew skills that will allow you to craft them for yourself. Not only will this get you what you need, but given the abyssmal lack of augs on your server found on the gtn, you could make yourself quite a bit of income crafting augs and selling them on the GTN yourself. You'd be the go to man for augs on your server, you could make a killing due to the rarity of these items on your server's GTN.

I'm afraid I can't provide you with the necessary crew skills needed to craft augs, I simply don't know. I couldn't craft a paper bag and have absolutely no clue whats involved, although I don't think its overly technical nor difficult, just would require a bit of research on your part to find the necessary skills needed and materials to craft. A web search would likely be easy to find the necessary information. You could also ask one of the 6 people on your server if perhaps they know heh

 

Bare in mind the values listed for the stat recommendations increase as the gear level gets higher [216-220-224] are met with higher bonus on the gear itself. i.e. a 220 gear might grant +180 alacrity while the same gear peice at the 224 rating would provide you with a +186 bonus to alacrity. So as you get more and more gear at higher ratings these bonus will add up. More significantly, you are still missing 15 augs if I understood you correctly. This is a tremendous amount of stat bonus you don't have yet. Each augment [grade 9] gives a +73 to a stat. So if you get three peices of gear you put grade 9 alacrity augments on that will grant you a +129 bonus to your alacrity so you'd end up with an alacrity rating at 650. Obvioisly the more augs you add to a stat the higher the stat bonus will be. These added augments [15] once attained will add +1095 bonus points to your stats. You choose the stats you wish to add to help you reach the desired values in your stat spread. The augs alone will make all the difference in the world. The augs are necessary to meet all the stat recommendations. It can't be done without them.

 

Start with getting the augs. This will be expensive, but it's necessary If you want to get your stats where you'd like them to be. Be advised, if you will be using the mastery/power stim, do not use any power or mastery augments at all. In that case all your augs should be devoted raising your alacrity and critical stat and accuracy if necessary [which with the mastery/power stim it will be. Do not use augments for any other stat. i.e. No defense or endurance augs.] you want all grade nine augment slots. Lower level augs provide smaller bonus'. Don't waste your time with anything other than the grade nine augments.[+73]. It make take you some time to get the credits together to aug out all your gear, consider it a work in progress.

 

Lastly, endeavor to get the full 6 peice set bonus from token gear. It doesn't add to your stats persay, but it will provide you with a big dps boost.

 

I hope this will be more helpful to you than my previous replys. If you have any other questions, ask away.

Good luck and hurt alot of people =]