After almost 3 years playing SWTOR, I've seen a lot of discussion about this stat, but never saw this argument:

Alacrity reduces the GCD time, this means U can adapt faster to any situation in pvp 'cuz you are going to react quicker than the rest, so this is an advantage to any class and spec, cuz you'll do almost everything on the propper time and faster than the others.

I do not know how do U feel playing at PVP but sometimes I feel 1,5 sec GCD is an eternity and (depending on class) u can reduce it to 1,4-1,3 sec easily without losing much crit or power. I know people prefer to have a lot of crits and power, but most of times if u are faster u are better in PVP.

I know some classes and specs may dont really think they need alacrity due that there are many skills aout of the GCD but I guess that if we could have a movement speed stat everybody would consider raising it as well...

In conclusion, I'd say an increase of 3-10% in alacrity should be strongly considered when thinking how to choose your stats.

I would like to hear what do U pvp community think about it, I do not want to go deep into tactical details in every class or spec, just pointing out a new way to think what alacrity is and listen your opinions

-A-

it is not wrong , i tried both alacrity and power crit . personally i tend to have balance since high alacrity mean yes u can hit faster but weaker as for high power crit you hit hard but longer so depend on the situation

but both work fine but i tend to have some alacrity but not too much

On my op, I tried out 3 different gear sets:

41% crit, no alacrity

39% crit, 3.3% alacrity

37% ish crit, 7% alacrity

I seriously did not notice any difference between either of them.

Now, on classes like Carnage Marauder or Lightning Sorc, Alacrity is definitely useful. I think the more channels/casts you use in your rotation, the better alacrity is. On a class like operative where everything is instant, I don't think alacrity is THAT beneficial. Overall, in PVP I think latency is more influential for faster reaction times than alacrity is.

I'd say Alacrity should be used to adjust your perception of time to the game mechanics. Everybody has different "internal tempos" i.e. the amount of time to perceive something:

(and enemy pops up a defensive cooldown:I see a bubble around him)

+ the time that need the brain to interpretate and understand that perception (that bubble=a deff CD)

+the time that needs the brain to take a decision (I have to stun him)

+ the time that needs the order to travel from the brain to the finger)

everybody has different tempos and may need more or less Alacrity to feel more comfortable to the game mechanics...

This makes me think that facerollers should love alacrity, as it gives them more speed smashing buttons LOL

-A-

Time reductions in channels, dot ticks, ICD, are imperceptible even with maxed out alacrity. We're talking 10ths of a second. If a channel takes 2.5 seconds and you get it down to 2.2 seconds with max alacrity and an alacrity buff from a skill, it's too small of a difference for you to notice, or make an impact. The benefits are just too small.

I've experimented with alacrity and have come to the conclusion it's just not worth it.

Time reductions in channels, dot ticks, ICD, are imperceptible even with maxed out alacrity. We're talking 10ths of a second. If a channel takes 2.5 seconds and you get it down to 2.2 seconds with max alacrity and an alacrity buff from a skill, it's too small of a difference for you to notice, or make an impact. The benefits are just too small.

 

I've experimented with alacrity and have come to the conclusion it's just not worth it.

Yeah, I only really take it on Carnage because with Beserk, you already get 30%, so 30% to 40% (7% alac in gear, +3% from form) is definitely noticeable.

imo, alac is only worth it when you have alac multipliers. and when you have them, you don't need a ton of alac. but if you stack alac w/o a multiplier, then you're going to kill your other stats to get there.

I think concealment has one. and I think carny had something too. mercs can do it for a raid buff every 5 mins. I'm sure there's other stuff.

As the saying goes, "horses for courses"

Some classes can benefit from stacking extra alac, for others it's detrimental. The important part is to find balance for your class. In some rare cases it might help some people to have just a little more or a little less than what is recommended by most of the community.

Ie, some people have pretty high ping and others have really low ping. Having a little more or less can help with either.

It's a little like accuracy. It's really not needed by any class in PVP. But for someone with really high ping, having some accuracy can help because you need to make sure your hits connect as much as possible because the lag will increase your misses any way. So with every hit, you need to make sure they connect more often than not. While this can seem like it may affect over all damage output. It's better to hit 3 out of 4 times with lower damage than it is to hit 1-2 out of 4 with higher damage.

But once again, it comes down to class. I know Icykill uses accuracy for her Jugg to offset her lag. She actually does heaps more damage with accuracy than without. But she doesn't use it in a Madness Sorc because its not needed for dot spec.

imo, alac is only worth it when you have alac multipliers. and when you have them, you don't need a ton of alac. but if you stack alac w/o a multiplier, then you're going to kill your other stats to get there.

 

I think concealment has one. and I think carny had something too. mercs can do it for a raid buff every 5 mins. I'm sure there's other stuff.

It's useful for healing too. Or so I've been told.

I've swapped to alacrity/crit on my serenity shadow (39.99% crit, the rest alacrity). It's not worth it unless I get into long fights, but honestly the difference is quite small (FiB/SS now hit for ~1000 less) and it feels good.

Go with whatever in regs. It's not like it really matters in the end...

Go with whatever in regs. It's not like it really matters in the end...

Calm down, Linkin Park.

Calm down, Linkin Park.

Whoops... I'll have to be careful in the future.

Whoops... I'll have to be careful in the future.

Confused, what????

Confused, what????

I'm allowed, I think.

I'm allowed, I think.

Fading Lights.

imo, alac is only worth it when you have alac multipliers. and when you have them, you don't need a ton of alac. but if you stack alac w/o a multiplier, then you're going to kill your other stats to get there.

 

I think concealment has one. and I think carny had something too. mercs can do it for a raid buff every 5 mins. I'm sure there's other stuff.

I agree with this. I have a number of classes. The only ones I even consider going with Alacrity is on my MM Sniper and Carnage Mara. I have tried Alacrity on other classes and I just don't notice any difference in PVP.

Generally, no matter what you do (Alac, acc, etc) Will give you same general total dps.

For example:

In one yolo game on my WM sentinel I did 4k dps and around 15k biggest hit with full power\crit gear.

For the next round I took 600+ Alacrity (Always bring some pices with me) And I did exact same 4k dps but only around 10k biggest hit.

So, saying again. No matter what you do it will bring you the same dps.

For PvP its better to go will full crit ofc. But having lots of alacrity is just fun xD

Time reductions in channels, dot ticks, ICD, are imperceptible even with maxed out alacrity. We're talking 10ths of a second. If a channel takes 2.5 seconds and you get it down to 2.2 seconds with max alacrity and an alacrity buff from a skill, it's too small of a difference for you to notice, or make an impact. The benefits are just too small.

this is not true, for me at least, at all. i very quickly notice when a merc uses his raid buff. how can you not notice your abilities channeling faster?

Generally, no matter what you do (Alac, acc, etc) Will give you same general total dps.

 

For example:

 

In one yolo game on my WM sentinel I did 4k dps and around 15k biggest hit with full power\crit gear.

 

For the next round I took 600+ Alacrity (Always bring some pices with me) And I did exact same 4k dps but only around 10k biggest hit.

 

 

So, saying again. No matter what you do it will bring you the same dps.

 

For PvP its better to go will full crit ofc. But having lots of alacrity is just fun xD

...i don't even... so your super scientific survey of two non identical matches leads you to conclude that alacrity is statistically insignificant? and now you're going to come onto the forums and tell everyone about it?

...i don't even... so your super scientific survey of two non identical matches leads you to conclude that alacrity is statistically insignificant? and now you're going to come onto the forums and tell everyone about it?

He didn't say it was statistically insignificant, because it is not. He said that he didn't notice a difference in the total DPS when he swapped out some power/crit for alacrity. Which is not the same thing as alacrity being a "statistical insignificance".

There isn't a stock answer for crit vs alacrity. The fact of the matter is, it is all situational. In higher uptime engagements, alacrity is huge for overall damage as you will see a significant improvement in energy regeneration as well as attacks per minute. So for those drawn out Civil war or NC stalemates, alacrity is huge.

For shorter engagements or low uptime fights, like Prooving grounds, AH, Huttball typically... Crit will give better output because each individual fight is short and the higher crit/power build is going to get more damage out of fewer attacks than an alacrity build.

In either case the gap between the builds is a few percent... It isn't nearly as significant as people would lead you to believe.

Well, although U are right saying that there's not much difference in average DPS, the benefits of Alacrity shouldn't be analyzed from a DPS point of view. DPS is only damage, and when I analyze my matches I try to go further than trying to know who made the most DPS: I look who has the highest ratio killing blows/kills, or the ratio dps/blowing kills, which tells me how is that guy being effective killing people and how fast. Or how much damage took a guy and the deaths it had, and more things...

What I want to say is Alacrity/crit should be compared in which build u think it makes u win more games than the other. For example, the statement that says that in ACW and in NC alacrity fits better the tactical playstyle due that fights are longer makes sense to me, but it is inaccurate. I would say that if U want to fight against big groups (which last longer, like ACW and NC most of times) alacrity built suits better because it gives more situation adaptability.

I would like to add that Alacrity is better for less skilled players as it reduces its reaction times (facerollers) and people that like to play tanking and healing because they have to manage with many players and different situations at the same time, and crit builds should fit better with people that play very cold (not my case!!!) and can "dance" while fighting...

A.

Since DCD's are not affected by alacrity, a high alacrity dependable burst class with a several move burst window (see Carnage / Combat) could benefit from stacking a lot of alacrity. The improvement is seen by having even more persistent burst windows, which the target will eventually run out of options to evade. It also is really funny to play / see in action.

That being said, I mainly play MM Sniper, which has lowest sustain in the game and whose top burst is delivered in .14 or 1.64 seconds (Ambush + FT hit at the same time, Ambush + TD + FT hit within a GCD, and you factor in the server lag which is a consistent .14s according to my parses). Alacrity is useless for me, better to simply stack crit with power augs.

Since DCD's are not affected by alacrity, a high alacrity dependable burst class with a several move burst window (see Carnage / Combat) could benefit from stacking a lot of alacrity. The improvement is seen by having even more persistent burst windows, which the target will eventually run out of options to evade. It also is really funny to play / see in action.

This is faulty logic. While it's true that eventually DCDs run out, your premise that landing more hits in a window without DCDs is better is wrong.

Sure, they'll run out of options, but the flipside of this is that your hit will lose a lot of their "oomph". Also, each DCD of theirs will count for more (since it will cover more burst windows).

Finally, you won't be gaining many burst windows. Certainly not on a single target. Having 10% alacrity means every GCD is now 1.44 seconds. For combat, you can shove in 3 moves into precision with base alacrity, 4 if you pop precision with a move in the air. You won't be able to do any better than this with less than 50% alacrity... Not to mention that you get more moves outside your burst window too. So all you gain is ease of using your precision window, at the price of weaker hits.

For burst specs, it's easy to see why crit/power is generally better. For DoTspecs putting up pressure, alacrity could be better depending on how long they keep their DoTs up and on how many targets.

Overall, the real reason to take alacrity is simply because it's fun. Not much else for it.

This is faulty logic. While it's true that eventually DCDs run out, your premise that landing more hits in a window without DCDs is better is wrong.

I think the larger issue (regarding his error) is how DCDs work. they are not at all universal. but I'll group them into 3 generic categories:

1. hard check -- this includes anything that negates all or effectively all incoming dmg (with limitations), so aborb/resist/dodge. the main abilities in this category are barrier, shroud, evasion, undying rage, arsenal chaff flares, mara/sniper acc debuffs, lolroll, RO, mad dash, reflect, etc.
   
2. mitigation -- these are your damage reduction things like reactive shield, saber ward, sniper shell, WZ adrenal, tank shield+absorb mechanic, etc.
   
3. escapes -- combat stealth, phase walk
   

obviously, you don't want to use any ability against a hard check if it's susceptible to that DCD. e.g., I'm not going to HSM when I see a sin has shrouded, but I will gleefully BB on him.

similarly, you want to prevent escapes, but those escapes prevent you from doing your burst. it's a push. you don't waste the burst on the DCD, but you can't use it either.

mitigation DCDs aren't going to actually stop anything. you very much want to do your dmg through them, and let me tell you, 25% reactive shield DR doesn't feel like it's doing jack sh^t in the face of a gore window. and if my choice is wait ~10s for a DR to drop off or pop my HSM, I'm going to HSM 99% of the time.

it's common sense that you don't want to waste burst on hard checks and escapes, so I'm going to assume the OP was talking about mitigation DCDs. and no, I would not hold off b/c of those. however, you don't generally want to CC a merc who has shield up, b/c then he's mitigating 55% of your dmg, and that is worth holding off on unless he's low or you have multiple teammates hitting him with you. so it's difficult to come up with hard and fast rules like this. however, the strat that you'd hold off until dcds are burned isn't really feasible, so the alac question doesn't really come up.