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Healing Sage: 0% Alacrity?


Krazy_Karl

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Am I the only one who has min/maxed my full Campaign gear such that I run with 0% Alacrity? Legitimate question (for PvE only)?

 

My reasoning is simple: the faster you cast, the less effect your native force regeneration has and the more "downtime" you will have. The class was never designed to be a "burst" healer, especially after they nerfed conveyance and our 1.5 second big heal (when Alacrity was actually useful).

 

I have tried many combinations with varying amounts of Alacrity replacing Surge (yes we all know the DR curve for Surge) and found that faster casts of Salvation and Healing Trance do not have any significant impact on healing in Operations. And if you're using either of the other two spells (Deliverance, Benevolence) with any frequency at all, you're doing it wrong.

 

It could just be a play style preference versus an actual tangible difference, but seeing Healing Trance tic for 2200+ 3-4 times in a row has been reinforcing my feeling that 80%+ Surge with 0% Alacrity is the way to go.

 

I have not seen any recent discussions regarding healing specifically for Sages and the impact of carrying Alacrity.

 

Regards,

KK

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Personally I see Alacrity as a useful stat for sage healing, tho trying to find the right amount of it yet, because I see Deliverance as being a great spell for tank healing in combination of rejuv and healing trance. Salvation I use on healer/rdps mainly. (great for Noble Sacrifice for Force) From my understanding sages want there Alac somewhere around 8.9-9.3%, tho I can't seem to get it in that range myself. If i remove 1 Alac enhancement i go from 10.07% down to 8.7% which i'm reluctant to go that low on. I've alrdy hit my surge cap of 75% so it really is a minor difference.
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Personally I see Alacrity as a useful stat for sage healing, tho trying to find the right amount of it yet, because I see Deliverance as being a great spell for tank healing in combination of rejuv and healing trance. Salvation I use on healer/rdps mainly. (great for Noble Sacrifice for Force) From my understanding sages want there Alac somewhere around 8.9-9.3%, tho I can't seem to get it in that range myself. If i remove 1 Alac enhancement i go from 10.07% down to 8.7% which i'm reluctant to go that low on. I've alrdy hit my surge cap of 75% so it really is a minor difference.

 

Saying "surge cap of 75%" is misleading because in my gear I have over 80% surge.

 

Regards,

KK

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Personally, I have quite a bit of alacrity (about the same as surge ~285 for ~9% cast time reduction). However, I don't doubt that healing with 0 alacrity is perfectly viable as you mention. What I wonder though, is what is your crit chance at? Unlike alacrity, in addition to suffering from DR, surge only benefits you when your heals crit (not saying you're not aware of this). If you're stacking crit above 40% to maximize this benefit you're losing out on power which will even the heals out, and if not, stacking surge loses its benefit. To compare, I think my innervate crits for around 2150 on NPCs and a bit over 2200 on myself.

 

You're right about alacrity reducing passive force regen, but at the same time, for sorcs, the passive regen is inferior to those of other classes which is why we are more more reliant on consumption.

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Personally, when I was playing my Sorc as my healing in Operations before changing to an Operative, I always considered Alacrity nearly useless. Granted having to throw in a long cast heal on a tank in a pinch did benefit from it. I never got beyond BH/Rakata gear level since I switched, but I beleive the only Alacrity I had was on my BH Implants after moving mods around and if those didn't have 71 (I think) power then I wouldn't have bothered spending the comms on them.

 

 

The most significant increase I noticed from a single stat was when I augmented all my all my gear and put a +18 Power augment in each slot minus 1. Pretty much once you hit the sift cap for Crit and Surge, the Sage/Sorc healer only has 1 stat to improve at that point.

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Stacking entirely Surge is absolutely, completely, undeniably a reduction of your potential HPS. If you're only doing encounters where the healing burden is far below your output anyway, that's fine, but in fights tuned tightly for your gear level you will heal less than someone with more balanced stats.

 

The virtue of a Sage's large resource pool is that we can afford to cast faster and burn our resource quicker.

Edited by Aurojiin
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Not a healer, have talked to my guild healers and it all goes with preference.

 

1. You have alacrity so you heal (in the nick of time)

2. You have no alacrity (big sustained heal)

 

So if someone could test the long term healing numbers of a healer with both type, we would see which one healed the most over time. But then the real question is would you have prevented death with one style versus the other?

 

If I were to roll a healer, I would priortize Surge to 75 percent, then all power and whatever slots are let, more surge/power. I would not do crit as with 2200 willpower your almost hitting the soft cap on crit, so more power/surge would give me more sustained healing like the op plays.

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Stacking entirely Surge is absolutely, completely, undeniably a reduction of your potential HPS. If you're only doing encounters where the healing burden is far below your output anyway, that's fine, but in fights tuned tightly for your gear level you will heal less than someone with more balanced stats.

 

The virtue of a Sage's large resource pool is that we can afford to cast faster and burn our resource quicker.

 

Thank you for providing an opinion veiled as fact and nothing else.

 

And the circumstances for the discussion are around Operations and PvE content at the highest possible gear level (min/maxed). Sages are not designed to be burst healers, nor should they attempt to play as such, especially in the most difficult content.

 

And if HM TFB is what you consider tuned tightly for min/maxed Campaign, I have had no problems healing any of the content. I just wanted to have a discussion regarding preference, playstyle, and opinions on how Alacrity has influenced players ability to heal.

 

Regards,

KK

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For an all itemlevel 61 geared character, you should have 570 points to divvy up among Accuracy, Alacrity, and Surge. Accuracy is obviously useless for a Sage. If you put 570 into surge, your surge value will be 80.11%. The first couple of blocks of 57 you move from Surge to Alacrity will give you almost 2% cast time reduction at the cost of only about 0.5% surge value. It does get steeper pretty quickly though, to where you're trading ~1.5% surge value for 1.5% cast time reduction when Surge = Alacrity and even worse when your alacrity is above your surge. At 570 Alacrity + 0 Surge, your cast time is reduced by 15.14% and your surge value is 51%. Edited by CitizenFry
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For an all itemlevel 61 geared character, you should have 570 points to divvy up among Accuracy, Alacrity, and Surge. Accuracy is obviously useless for a Sage. If you put 570 into surge, your surge value will be 80.11%. The first couple of blocks of 57 you move from Surge to Alacrity will give you almost 2% cast time reduction at the cost of only about 0.5% surge value. It does get steeper pretty quickly though, to where you're trading ~1.5% surge value for 1.5% cast time reduction when Surge = Alacrity and even worse when your alacrity is above your surge. At 570 Alacrity + 0 Surge, your cast time is reduced by 15.14% and your surge value is 51%.

 

Yeah, I noticed this when switching my implants/earpiece to the ones I have which carry the Alacrity instead of Surge. Since starting TFB HM there hasn't been an instance where an extra 2% quicker cast would have been "make it or break it" on a clear.

 

Not that the extra .5% Surge has either. But just in terms of getting the most "bank for my buck" when I am casting, I can see a tangible benefit from the Surge versus the Alacrity when watching my Healing Trance critical 3-4 times over its cast time.

 

Regards,

KK

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Thank you for providing an opinion veiled as fact and nothing else.

 

And the circumstances for the discussion are around Operations and PvE content at the highest possible gear level (min/maxed). Sages are not designed to be burst healers, nor should they attempt to play as such, especially in the most difficult content.

 

And if HM TFB is what you consider tuned tightly for min/maxed Campaign, I have had no problems healing any of the content. I just wanted to have a discussion regarding preference, playstyle, and opinions on how Alacrity has influenced players ability to heal.

 

Regards,

KK

 

Considering the hilariously steep DR curve on surge it's of pretty dubious usefulness past 75% (hence the SOFTcap). Alacrity at these points won't blow you off you're feet but it will increase you're short term hps potential.

 

You were right sure. Sages aren't burst healers. Neither are operatives and BH's aren't particularly good at it either.

 

Being able to heal faster is still of use.

Edited by CaptainApop
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For an all itemlevel 61 geared character, you should have 570 points to divvy up among Accuracy, Alacrity, and Surge. Accuracy is obviously useless for a Sage. If you put 570 into surge, your surge value will be 80.11%. The first couple of blocks of 57 you move from Surge to Alacrity will give you almost 2% cast time reduction at the cost of only about 0.5% surge value. It does get steeper pretty quickly though, to where you're trading ~1.5% surge value for 1.5% cast time reduction when Surge = Alacrity and even worse when your alacrity is above your surge. At 570 Alacrity + 0 Surge, your cast time is reduced by 15.14% and your surge value is 51%.

 

It's actually 627 available points to be precise :p

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Considering the hilariously steep DR curve on surge it's of pretty dubious usefulness past 75% (hence the SOFTcap). Alacrity at these points won't blow you off you're feet but it will increase you're short term hps potential.

 

You were right sure. Sages aren't burst healers. Neither are operatives and BH's aren't particularly good at it either.

 

Being able to heal faster is still of use.

 

So losing 5% Surge because of the "softcap" provides what tangible benefit to a Sage? Healing faster is of what use? I have never run into an encounter in PvE/Ops (as a Sage) where I said to myself "just .1 more second and that person wouldn't have died" but then again, my mileage may vary compared to yours.

 

Basically, what I want to know is why do I need to be healing faster? (Honestly)

 

Regards,

KK

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This is an interesting point. I haven't tried re-gearing my Sage healer for no alacrity so I can't comment on it's effectiveness in ops. Currently in my 61 gear (haven't done HM TfB yet) I have about 9% cast time increase from alacrity with the rest in crit/surge. I modeled my gear targets based on the 1.3 BiS for a dps telekinetic sage with a few changes based on personal preference. This has done very well for me as an end-game healer.

 

On the other hand, I've been leveling a Sorcerer healer in my spare time (currently at level 47) and my skill tree is almost complete. Because mix/maxing prior to 50 is sort of pointless, I have no alarity on this toon at the moment. I have to say that the longer cast times really get on my nerves.

 

I suppose this is just a case of what I'm used to, but when I do reach 50 I plan on adding alacrity for my sorc healer to match what I have on my sage healer.

 

P.S. Off topic, sorry, but I deparately miss the 30m stun when fighting elite mobs 3 levels higher than me ...

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One benefit for healing faster is when healing multiple targets. For example, comparing your innervate to someone with 10% alacrity, yours may heal for slightly more (depending on crits of course) but will take 0.3 seconds longer to cast. One could, for example, toss a sonic barrier on the same target (or another) or instant heal with resurgence any target, 0.3 seconds before you. This is also useful for heals like revivification or even dark infusion should you choose to use it.

 

@ itsmymillertime

 

I would not do crit as with 2200 willpower your almost hitting the soft cap on crit, so more power/surge would give me more sustained healing like the op plays

 

The bonus crit given by willpower is completely separate from the DR curve given by crit, the "soft cap" you're discussing for crit is actually ~300 crit, regardless of your willpower. Whether you think having 42% crit is worth more than having an extra ~100 power (with 39% crit) or whatever numbers you think is another story, but willpower doesn't affect the soft cap for crit.

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So losing 5% Surge because of the "softcap" provides what tangible benefit to a Sage? Healing faster is of what use? I have never run into an encounter in PvE/Ops (as a Sage) where I said to myself "just .1 more second and that person wouldn't have died" but then again, my mileage may vary compared to yours.

 

Basically, what I want to know is why do I need to be healing faster? (Honestly)

 

Regards,

KK

I believe that both "no alacrity" and "some alacrity" are effective in end-game content. The only way you could get into trouble is try to stack too much alacrity and lose out on crit/power.

 

Now, I've seen this argument made for a dps sages -- that stacking any alacrity at all is of no benefit. But the SimC modeling showed that for a TK sage, (who has long cast time abilities), that the overall dps went up when adding alacrity.

 

I believe the same happens with healing. Only rejuvenate is instant. Every other cast is affected by alacrity, and your heals per second will go up because of it.

 

Will it make or break anything either way? I think not. But I do believe that my +9% cast time gives me more hps overall. Just sayin'

Edited by Khevar
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It's actually 627 available points to be precise :p

 

57 for ear, 57 x2 for implants, 57 x7 for enhancements (head, chest, gloves, pants, boots, mainhand, offhand). Where are you getting that 11th 57 from? Or are you looking at 1x Champion Relic of Forbidding Secrets (WH power relic is better)

Edited by CitizenFry
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Thank you for providing an opinion veiled as fact and nothing else.

Thank you for demonstrating a complete misunderstanding of my point.

 

I'm not talking about burst healing at all, I'm talking about higher sustained healing. Having some alacrity allows you to execute single and multi-target rotations faster, meaning you will simply do more healing over time in a sustained casting situation.

 

This isn't an opinion, this is a mathematical fact.

 

I believe that both "no alacrity" and "some alacrity" are effective in end-game content. The only way you could get into trouble is try to stack too much alacrity and lose out on crit/power.

Alacrity doesn't trade with crit/power, but aside from that I agree with your post. The OP is mistakenly associating alacrity with "burst healing", but the point is that you simply cast more heals over time, and generally keep HT on cooldown more often.

Edited by Aurojiin
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So losing 5% Surge because of the "softcap" provides what tangible benefit to a Sage? Healing faster is of what use? I have never run into an encounter in PvE/Ops (as a Sage) where I said to myself "just .1 more second and that person wouldn't have died" but then again, my mileage may vary compared to yours.

 

Basically, what I want to know is why do I need to be healing faster? (Honestly)

 

Regards,

KK

 

Slow reply, foruming mid ops.

 

I think you're focusing a bit too much on "I've done TfB hm with stacked surge so who cares". You don't need to be perfectly optimized to clear any content in this game currently. My guild clearing kephess hm last tier is proof enough of that I assure you.

On a secondary point we haven't seen what nightmare mode is going to look like so that argument presumably won't hold much water later.

 

The general arguments in favor of alacrity are an increase in idle time. It doesn't sound great but you need to think about it a bit.

1. More idle time amounts to extra GCDs over the course of the fight. Means one of two things, it either allows you to spam more within a certain time to top folk up or it gives you more time to manage your force. Which in turn lets you but out more healing over the fight.

2. More idle time allow YOU to be more mobile, more responsive, despite not being a member of the operative master race. This reduces the damage you take from aoe effects as a general rule.

3. If you have never in your raids ever ever eaten a tick to aoe damage to get a heal off or never find yourself ever in need of more healing output, even then you can throw out some damage so the boss dies quicker (preventative healing).

 

Now I'm sure you can see the benefits are considerably more ethereal. This is why no one touches it until they have a healthy amount of surge :l

 

Two final points. The reason people like Aurojin are a bit blunt is because this topic is launch-day OLD. Anything to be said about it has kind of already been said. Secondly that "regards" sign off thing is kind of annoying :L

You're on a forum, your sig serves that purpose. This isn't a letter :L

Edited by CaptainApop
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57 for ear, 57 x2 for implants, 57 x7 for enhancements (head, chest, gloves, pants, boots, mainhand, offhand). Where are you getting that 11th 57 from? Or are you looking at 1x Champion Relic of Forbidding Secrets (WH power relic is better)

 

Woops, I'm an idiot.

I accidentally counted the belt aswell...

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While I agree sages generally put too much emphasis on Alacrity, completely sacrificing a stat is Krazy, Carl. Even with a superficial understanding of the diminishing returns, it is obvious.

 

Anyways, here's a quote from mmo-mechanics with some numbers regarding 550/0 surge/ alacrity vs. 300/250 surge/alacrity:

 

"....Beyond that, mathematically you're gaining VERY little from that additional ~250 Surge rating (from ~300 to ~550). At 300 Surge Rating, you have a 75.2790% crit multiplier. At 550, you have 78.9889%. For 250 itemization points, you've increased the healing done by your crits by 2.12%. Even assuming a 45% crit chance (ballpark averaging in the 25% bonus to Innervate from Resurg), that's still less than a 1% increase in total healing output.

 

If you instead invested that 250 in Alacrity, you'd get 7.9569% activation speed out of it, which is a straight ~8% increase to HPCT from cast-time abilities. Even assuming that's only 60% of your HPS, that's still nearly a 5% increase to healing output."

 

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-954-page-14.html

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Slow reply, foruming mid ops.

 

I think you're focusing a bit too much on "I've done TfB hm with stacked surge so who cares". You don't need to be perfectly optimized to clear any content in this game currently. My guild clearing kephess hm last tier is proof enough of that I assure you.

On a secondary point we haven't seen what nightmare mode is going to look like so that argument presumably won't hold much water later.

 

The general arguments in favor of alacrity are an increase in idle time. It doesn't sound great but you need to think about it a bit.

1. More idle time amounts to extra GCDs over the course of the fight. Means one of two things, it either allows you to spam more within a certain time to top folk up or it gives you more time to manage your force. Which in turn lets you but out more healing over the fight.

2. More idle time allow YOU to be more mobile, more responsive, despite not being a member of the operative master race. This reduces the damage you take from aoe effects as a general rule.

3. If you have never in your raids ever ever eaten a tick to aoe damage to get a heal off or never find yourself ever in need of more healing output, even then you can throw out some damage so the boss dies quicker (preventative healing).

 

Now I'm sure you can see the benefits are considerably more ethereal. This is why no one touches it until they have a healthy amount of surge :l

 

Two final points. The reason people like Aurojin are a bit blunt is because this topic is launch-day OLD. Anything to be said about it has kind of already been said. Secondly that "regards" sign off thing is kind of annoying :L

You're on a forum, your sig serves that purpose. This isn't a letter :L

 

Thank you for an actual constructive reply.

 

People like Aurojin respond to threads like this because he seems to believe "his way is the best way PERIOD" and do not want to have a discussion.

 

As far as the discussion having been beaten to death since launch, much has changed in the game since then. In addition, the debate will always continue, but I wanted to focus on end game healing, specifically in Operations (which I did a search of the forums prior to posting).

 

And people bringing up HPS and math is not what I was interested in. We can sit here and calculate an actual value for it all day, but we all know (especially with the Sage post-1.2) that skill plays a much more significant part of the equation.

 

We have yet to see any encounters that truly stress healers to the level where stats will make or break an encounter. What I am thrilled you brought up are the intangibles such as "mobility" and using the extra GCD's to DPS instead of "idling" especially given that force regeneration is a non issue again with force mend. So thank you again for the responses that are outside of the norm and actually constructive.

 

And to Aurojin, thank you for providing absolutely nothing to this discussion.

 

Regards,

KK

Edited by Krazy_Karl
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As far as the discussion having been beaten to death since launch, much has changed in the game since then. In addition, the debate will always continue, but I wanted to focus on end game healing, specifically in Operations (which I did a search of the forums prior to posting).

 

Nothing has changed for healer statwise since launch, barring the initial surge DR nerf.

 

Dismissing other peoples opinions for explaining why it was better in terms of maths is outlandishly ignorant btw.

You're talking about stat optimization, the skill of the user at the other end is almost entirely irrelevant to this side of the equation.

Edited by CaptainApop
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