Alacrity as a healer

[OGSnow]

Not sure if there's been a thread previously about the same thing so don't bite my face off if there has been >.<

 

right onto my problem. I just hit lvl 40, i got the full lvl40 pvp gear and accessory's from the pvp vendor with alacrity as one of the main stats. I also have a relic that adds 150 alacrity for a short time. My base alacrity is 105.

 

Now heres my question....is something wrong with this stat or is it rly just not worth having. I cast my normal heal in 2.5 seconds...with my new gear its 2.4....with the trinket its 2.3. 0.2 seconds faster cast....that's barely noticeable! Should i be going another stat instead because its bad for healers or is it bugged?

 

The reason i wanted cast speed in the first place was because in pvp i can bearly get 1 heal out when someone is attacking me or in the more usual case 3+ ppl attacking me lol.

recommendations would be appreciated.

[Daellia]

Alacrity scales rather slowly, that's part of the problem.

 

In addition to that, Alacrity only affects the cast time, not cooldowns or force regen. Thus you end up casting more Dark Infusions or Dark Heals (relative to the number of Resurgence/Innervate combos), reducing your average heals-per-force. In addition, you use more force per period time, while maintaining the same regen rate, further reducing your force efficiency. Overall Alacrity isn't really worth having for healers.

[Jigglypants]

I actually think alacrity is really undervalued both in pve and pvp.

 

Sure it might not look that good to a theorycrafter but in reality you want to land your heals as quick as possible.

 

Especially when it comes to activation trinkets, running it when you know that you will enter a phase that requires lots of healing is awesome. I will use my alacrity trinket over power or crit/surge any day.

 

Finally when it comes to force efficiency, I don't know what people do to manage to run out of force, but as long as you make good use of your shield, never miss a free consumption and use innervate over any cast time heal when it's available you shouldn't run into problems. Sure you can run low on force temporarily, but it's very rare that you are not given a chanse to slowly regen.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Jigglypants

[Daellia]

Sure it might not look that good to a theorycrafter but in reality you want to land your heals as quick as possible.

 

Honestly, this isn't really the case. You need to output the most heals possible. You don't necessarily need to land them as quickly as possible. This isn't Wrath, tanks don't die in 2 globals here. The only other reason to need to land heals as quickly as possible is if you're only reaction healing. Alacrity is a good crutch for healers that aren't good at predicting incoming damage and pre-healing. For those that can, it's a rather terrible stat.

[Abraxxes]

I would argue as a healer in PvP, I have avoided almost all PvE for the three weeks I've been 50, Alacrity is insanely nice. If you want to go with the argument that you run out of force faster, then sure you do, but there's more than just one way to get it. Honestly as I'm about to use Revivification I pop consumption right away because I'll easily heal it back within a few seconds. This allows me to usually get 2 Consumptions without losing health, but even then I'm rarely oom enough to the point where I have to do that, unless I've just been spam healing someone through the entire team and can't stop between casts to waste a GCD on Consumption without risking killing them. I would also argue its uses in PvP is even more useful when you take into consideration how often you get interrupted. I have faced teams before that interrupt my Revivification 4 times before I can successfully get it done, along with my Innervate, or any other heal for that matter, and the alacrity I have helps me cast skills that with an extra .3s cast I'd previously be unable to. It also helps me get extra ticks off my Innervate before it gets interrupted further increasing the chance I can get my force back.

 

Despite what I've just said though, as someone who's used the Biochem alacrity adrenal, I would argue you should avoid it through things like relics etc. It would be a lot more useful if you could get a Surge buff or something else along those lines. The reason being is, at least for me, when I pop adrenals its because someone is taking a lot of damage and my main heal in that situation is the double Dark Infusion proc which honestly doesn't really benefit very largely from alacrity. With the 10% Alacrity I gain from the adrenal I find it is insanely useful for Innervate and Revivification, but as far as popping it in an emergency to keep someone up its not as useful simply because of how low Dark Infusions cast time is already with the Resurgence buff.

 

So end result in PvP, in my opinion at least, Alacrity as an oh **** buff, not nearly as good compared to others. Alacrity on gear, insanely useful.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Abraxxes

[Daellia]

Mmm, yes, I should note that most of my argumentation is from a PvE standpoint.

[Jigglypants]

Honestly, this isn't really the case. You need to output the most heals possible. You don't necessarily need to land them as quickly as possible. This isn't Wrath, tanks don't die in 2 globals here. The only other reason to need to land heals as quickly as possible is if you're only reaction healing. Alacrity is a good crutch for healers that aren't good at predicting incoming damage and pre-healing. For those that can, it's a rather terrible stat.

 

There are more scenarios than tank healing, and situations where you can not count on your aoe heal to top off your group. No matter how hard a single spell heals, it will not help if you can't throw enough of them to heal everyone that needs it.

[Daellia]

There are more scenarios than tank healing, and situations where you can not count on your aoe heal to top off your group. No matter how hard a single spell heals, it will not help if you can't throw enough of them to heal everyone that needs it.

 

You have spells for that. Dark Heal, despite being very inefficient, is quick. Drop a Shield -> Resurgence -> double Dark Infusion and you can top someone off in 6 seconds while also giving them a good 5-6k in buffer while you get those DI's started. Alacrity really isn't needed when it comes to emergency healing, and the disadvantages of it definitely outweight the benefits for tank and AoE healing.

[Iwipe]

Honestly, I think the argument that don't take alacrity because it isn't force efficient is a poor argument. Yes, you are absolutely correct that you will consume more force in a given time frame with a higher alacrity/activation speed. However, with proper Consumption usage I don't think that is even an issue.

 

Also since alacrity reduces GCD for spells with <1.5 s casting speed and you can make dark infusion <1.5 with Resurgence, wouldn't that also benefit even more, even though it is only one spell (or two if you add Dark Heal).

 

For me, I definitely like to think alacrity have saved my party members/ops members numerous times. There are situations where no matter how good a healer you are, time is not on your side and the extra tiny gain you get with alacrity may make the difference.

 

My biggest gripes with alacrity is the amount you have to spend to get a decent return in activation speed. That would be one of my reasons to not take alacrity, and instead focus on other stats with a better return.

[Walldorf]

I stack alacrity. im at 400 and have 10% haste. After this value alacrity scales terrible. With my relic on i have 750is alacrity and "only" 16% haste.

 

On the other hand is it simple to go for 50% crit and 80-100% surge (buffed ^^).

 

After all whats better?

 

100 spells do 10 more and crit 33 of them for 50% more?

 

100 spells do 50 times double heal/dmg?

 

Im no pro in math, no joke -.- , but i think what i say it's kind of right ^^.

 

IF you have 2 relics there ARE only 2 relics worth wearing (in my point of view) and thats the alacrity and the crit Relic (for heal). If you are in a hard fight and it's getting narrow you can use the alacrity relic and get 3xx alacrity, means 7-8% haste, and still have your crit rating and surge. The other way arround you cast fast and get crits that are insanly... low ^^.

 

After all I think you should stack your healgear with tha stats that are on it = Alacrity and power. EVRY other peace you wear schould be about crit + surge. I think after all its the best way to go for something about:

 

10% haste 35% crit and 75%-80% surge,it's atm the best thing i can see and reachable ^^.

 

On the other hand i ask myself why Power isn't scaling well ingame, the bonus heal is crap or am i a absolute math nobrainer and got something wrong? ^^

[Rehneu]

I stack alacrity. im at 400 and have 10% haste. After this value alacrity scales terrible. With my relic on i have 750is alacrity and "only" 16% haste.

 

On the other hand is it simple to go for 50% crit and 80-100% surge (buffed ^^).

 

After all whats better?

 

100 spells do 10 more and crit 33 of them for 50% more?

 

100 spells do 50 times double heal/dmg?

 

Im no pro in math, no joke -.- , but i think what i say it's kind of right ^^.

 

IF you have 2 relics there ARE only 2 relics worth wearing (in my point of view) and thats the alacrity and the crit Relic (for heal). If you are in a hard fight and it's getting narrow you can use the alacrity relic and get 3xx alacrity, means 7-8% haste, and still have your crit rating and surge. The other way arround you cast fast and get crits that are insanly... low ^^.

 

After all I think you should stack your healgear with tha stats that are on it = Alacrity and power. EVRY other peace you wear schould be about crit + surge. I think after all its the best way to go for something about:

 

10% haste 35% crit and 75%-80% surge,it's atm the best thing i can see and reachable ^^.

 

On the other hand i ask myself why Power isn't scaling well ingame, the bonus heal is crap or am i a absolute math nobrainer and got something wrong? ^^

 

You are the first one in the thread to actually make a statement about the stats that a healer should be focusing on. Well done. Everyone needs to realize this and realize how these stats directly affect your heals and more so, how each of your heals interact with each other.

 

I can tell you right now, PvE healing, I have zero issues with these stats while keeping the group up. At times, I have seen crit heals hitting for an ungodly amount while being able to constantly get those heals out. I have brought someone back from near death to full health in a matter of seconds as well. (this after the sith was hitting the fan)

 

It is all about the healer in groups. Not the tank. If the healer is good and knows what they are doing, knows how to manage their bar and knows how to manage their heals, then the group will do well. Most tend to think that the healer just exists for the tank. Well, the way I see is is that if any member of the group falls, it is my fault. I was not on my game and not paying attention. Each member is important to the group and each needs to have those heals at the right time.

 

Alcrity, Power, Surge and crit are all the stats that every healer should be looking at. If you focus on one and ignore the others, then you are just handi-capping yourself.

[Jooji]

I really think it's all about balance as a couple other posters said. That said, I try to avoid surge. I still have about 150 surge because it's unavoidable, but I prefer crit/alacrity.

[Walldorf]

I prefer to have anything .

 

Force managment is a joke, you'll NEVER be oof if you play "corrextly" so you never have a prob with this. It's all about potent crit heals in a short time . If we take a look on that we'll first see:

 

Potent - Surge

Crit . crit

sohort - time alacrity

 

If you wear the columni set youl easily get 400 alacrity (main + offhandweapon should be good as well ^^) thats 10 % haste, thats FAR enough for HM OPS and flashpoints. After that i don't see big haste gain because there is somewhere a DR near that mark.

 

Now you got Wrists, ear and imp slots for crit and surge. Power is complete crap, the benefit of power isnt worth complaining about it ^^.

 

After all i think it's simple, for myself truely hard, math ^^. I think it's all about the DR's on your stats.

 

Enough surge till its flaten out, enough crit till it's flaten out, enough alacrity till it's flat out. If i miss something about power pls tell it to me ^^.

[Daellia]

Power is complete crap, the benefit of power isnt worth complaining about it ^^.

 

10 points of power adds 5 points of absorb to Static Barrier alone. It's certainly not crap.

[Walldorf]

My tooltip won't even tell my how many dmg my barrier absorbs ^^

[Daellia]

My tooltip won't even tell my how many dmg my barrier absorbs ^^

 

1134 + 327% Force Healing bonus.

 

That's baseline, before all talents.

 

 

Also, I went through and put together a rough stat scaling check for each of our abilities. If we assume standard ability usage, we should get somewhere around 6.7 Innervates and Resurgences, 13.3 Dark Infusions, and 3 Static Barriers per minute.

 

If we assume 1500 Willpower, 1200 Force Power, and 300 each in Power, Crit, Surge, and Alacrity, we get the following rough stat weights (normalized to Willpower):

 

Willpower = 1.000

Power = 1.015

Crit = 0.863

Surge = 0.858

Alacrity = 0.910

 

However, if we plug in the stats on the Rakata Force Mystic's set (using Force Master's items where Mystics don't exist), which gives us 1550 Willpower, 1217 Power, 510 Crit, 201 Surge, 306 Alacrity, and 125 Power, we get the following:

 

Willpower = 1.000

Power = 1.038

Crit = 0.566

Surge = 1.430

Alacrity = 0.900

 

This illustrates very clearly two things: Power is an extremely important stat, on level with Willpower, and Surge's value is extremely volatile based on current crit chance. Alacrity's value is pretty stable at 90% that of Power and Alacrity, and Crit's value drops significantly as you rise from 300 to 510 crit rating (while Surge's nearly doubles).

 

 

tl;dr: Power is generally king. If you have lots of Crit, Surge is very valuable. If you have lots of Surge, Crit becomes rather valuable (not as dynamic as Surge, though). Alacrity holds steady at about 90% the value of Willpower.

 

Caveats: This is based on several assumptions. First off, we use roughly the spell distribution listed above, which means no Dark Heals, and Innervate and Static Barrier on CD. Also, Innervate is always buffed with Force Bending.

 

Second, this doesn't take into account force sustainability, if that becomes an issue at any point.

 

Third, this assumes overhealing is not an issue. This may or may not be a justified assumption, and if it isn't, crit and surge lose a bit of their value. Power shouldn't lose any, since a smart healer knows how much their heals land for on a non-crit and plan accordingly.

[Iwipe]

I treat power as a fall back stats. Initially the gains in crit/surge/alacrity will be alot beneficial but once you get enough of them, the return isn't great due to diminishing returns. Power, without a diminishing returns, becomes an optimal stat to stack for at much later gear levels (i.e. full columi and above you are pretty much good on crit/surge/alacrity and focus on power instead).

[Daellia]

I treat power as a fall back stats. Initially the gains in crit/surge/alacrity will be alot beneficial but once you get enough of them, the return isn't great due to diminishing returns. Power, without a diminishing returns, becomes an optimal stat to stack for at much later gear levels (i.e. full columi and above you are pretty much good on crit/surge/alacrity and focus on power instead).

 

Actually, just to show, if you have 0 power, 0 crit, 0 surge, and 0 alacrity, your stat weights will be around:

 

Willpower = 1.000

Power = 1.078

Crit = 0.928

Surge = 2.479

Alacrity = 1.188

 

More specifically, Alacrity becomes less valuable than Power and Willpower at about 150 rating.

 

Hard to quote similar crossovers for Surge and Crit, since they are heavily interdependent. However, Surge is universally better than Crit until you hit about 150 Surge rating. From that point on, Surge and Crit are equal if you keep surge equal to roughly 150 + CritRating/2 (ie. if Crit = 100, Surge = 150 + 100/2 = 200). If Surge is below this value, it's more valuable than crit; if above, crit is more valuable. This holds until at least 300 rating in each.

 

Both Power and Willpower exceed the value of Crit and Surge at roughly 150 Crit and 225 Surge.

 

Those are really your goals. 150 Crit, 225 Surge, 150 Alacrity, stack Power thereafter.*

 

*Technically, you want to increase the other stats by about 10 for every 100 power you add

Edited January 15, 2012 by Daellia

[Iwipe]

Just curious, how did you calculate the stat weightings? When I was trying to find an optimal stop point for crit/surge/alacrity so I can stack for power, I did some calculations in Excel but could not really find a very precise point.

 

What I did was take a spell like Dark Infusion, you can calculate exactly how much x amount of power would give you in turns of actual hp increase based on the formulas and Torhead values. Comparing this to crit and surge was hard as they are interdependent. What I did was assuming 0 surge and calculated how much every 50 point in crit rating (from 0) would give me in terms of HP increase (50 power give me a 29 hp increase on the min healing values of Dark Infusion) . The first 50 points into crit rating give me 2.177% crit chance. Assuming I have 0 surge and just a base multipler of 1.5 for when I crit, it is going to be 2771 * 1.5 *0.02177 = 90 hp increase overall on Dark Infusion. Doing the same for surge was hard as surge is highly dependent on your crit chance. I just said lets assume 30% crit chance to compare its values with power. Alacrity was even harder to compare, but I just said 300-350 give you around 10% activation speed, the next 300-350 points alacrity give you only roughly 5% return in activation speed so it just doesn't really seem to worth it.

 

It was alot of calculations based on assumptions and highly dependent on the spell you using so I wasn't sure if it was all correct.

[truksama]

I like alacrity for healing. Fast casts combined with Consumption work well, I don't run out of force often and am able to keep most everyone alive in PvP. I haven't had a problem in PvE either because I feel that it is more slower paced than PvP so everything I easy to manage.

[Daellia]

Just curious, how did you calculate the stat weightings? When I was trying to find an optimal stop point for crit/surge/alacrity so I can stack for power, I did some calculations in Excel but could not really find a very precise point.

 

What I did was take a spell like Dark Infusion, you can calculate exactly how much x amount of power would give you in turns of actual hp increase based on the formulas and Torhead values. Comparing this to crit and surge was hard as they are interdependent. What I did was assuming 0 surge and calculated how much every 50 point in crit rating (from 0) would give me in terms of HP increase (50 power give me a 29 hp increase on the min healing values of Dark Infusion) . The first 50 points into crit rating give me 2.177% crit chance. Assuming I have 0 surge and just a base multipler of 1.5 for when I crit, it is going to be 2771 * 1.5 *0.02177 = 90 hp increase overall on Dark Infusion. Doing the same for surge was hard as surge is highly dependent on your crit chance. I just said lets assume 30% crit chance to compare its values with power. Alacrity was even harder to compare, but I just said 300-350 give you around 10% activation speed, the next 300-350 points alacrity give you only roughly 5% return in activation speed so it just doesn't really seem to worth it.

 

It was alot of calculations based on assumptions and highly dependent on the spell you using so I wasn't sure if it was all correct.

 

I used Excel. Basically, I ran baseline calculations for the DPCT of each ability given a base set of stats, then calculated the difference in DPCT given a static amount additional of each stat (in the case of my number, I used a stat interval of 10). I then normalized these to Willpower.

 

To find the breakpoints, I simply fiddled with the numbers until I got the relative stat weights of all 4 stats to be close to 1, then messed with them until I found a pattern for their relationships to each other.

 

I'll admit, it's just an approximation, if a rather accurate one. The major approximation comes from estimating the usage of the various abilities.

 

The scaling for each of the abilities is mathematically firm, and remarkably easy to model. For example, if I have X crit and wish to model the scaling of crit, I simply take [DPCT(crit = X + 10) - DPCT(crit = X] / 10. That gives me the average DPCT change per point of crit over that interval. Do that for each stat, then normalize to Willpower, and you've got your stat weights for that ability. The tricky part is figuring out how to weight the averaging of those values from each of the abilities.

[Iwipe]

I used Excel. Basically, I ran baseline calculations for the DPCT of each ability given a base set of stats, then calculated the difference in DPCT given a static amount additional of each stat (in the case of my number, I used a stat interval of 10). I then normalized these to Willpower.

 

To find the breakpoints, I simply fiddled with the numbers until I got the relative stat weights of all 4 stats to be close to 1, then messed with them until I found a pattern for their relationships to each other.

 

I'll admit, it's just an approximation, if a rather accurate one. The major approximation comes from estimating the usage of the various abilities.

 

The scaling for each of the abilities is mathematically firm, and remarkably easy to model. For example, if I have X crit and wish to model the scaling of crit, I simply take [DPCT(crit = X + 10) - DPCT(crit = X] / 10. That gives me the average DPCT change per point of crit over that interval. Do that for each stat, then normalize to Willpower, and you've got your stat weights for that ability. The tricky part is figuring out how to weight the averaging of those values from each of the abilities.

 

Ah okies, that sounds alot more scientific and solid than what I was doing hehe. Sometiems I think it is hard to justify stacking for power simply because the return isn't very apparent like other stats. With crit rating/surge/alacrity, you know right away the benefits. With power, you have to do a bit of digging and calculations with the formulas to know exactly what you getting in return.

[Walldorf]

1134 + 327% Force Healing bonus.

 

 

the 1134 are from the tooltip or where did they came from? And 327% healbonus..... rly?

[Daellia]

the 1134 are from the tooltip or where did they came from? And 327% healbonus..... rly?

 

It's from the game files. To be specific, it's 16% of the level 50 StandardHealing value (which is 7085), with a coefficient of 3.27. Thus 0.16*7085 = 1134, thus 1134 + 327% of Force Healing Bonus.

 

If you'd like something else to test these values against, here are the coefficients of the other healing spells (these should match the tooltips, provided you don't have any talents that buff them*):

 

Dark Infusion: 0.17*StandardHealing + 3.41*ForceHealingBonus

Dark Heal: 0.088*StandardHealing + 1.75*ForceHealingBonus

Innervate: 0.0515*StandardHealing + 1.03*ForceHealingBonus (per tick, 4 ticks)

Resurgence (Direct): 0.045*StandardHealing + 0.91*ForceHealingBonus

Resurgence (HoT): 0.016*StandardHealing + 0.33*ForceHealingBonus (per tick, 3-5 ticks)

 

*Note that Innervate, Resurgence, and Revivification will show slightly lower values in their tooltips. This is because the tooltips for abilities gained from talents are current bugged. They use the StandardHealing (or StandardHP, for damage attacks) of the level they are first available (example, level 20 for Resurgence), even though their actual healing/damage uses the current level of the player. If you'd like to calculate them, the values are listed at the bottom of the first post in this thread.

 

On that note, this is why Power is such a surprisingly good stat for healers. While it only gives roughly 73% of the Healing Bonus that it does Damage Bonus, the coefficients for healing spells are rather obscenely high. As an example, compare Innervate above to its damage clone Force Lightning.

 

For reference, StandardHP is not the same as StandardHealing. StandardHP is used in damage calculations in place of StandardHealing, and its level 50 value is 1610.

 

Force Lightning: 0.079*StandardHP + 0.79*ForceDamageBonus (per tick, 4 ticks)

 

To boil that down even farther:

 

Innervate: 365 + 14.42% Willpower + 17.51% (Power + Force Power)

Force Lightning: 127 + 15.80% Willpower + 18.17% (Power + Force Power)

 

Force Lightning scales slightly better with Power/Force Power and Willpower, but Innervate has a significantly higher base amount.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Daellia

[Fraeblood]

The way I treat alacrity is, do I need it? When I was leveling, and I did so as a healer with my tank pet, I did choose gear and mods with Alacrity. When I hit 50 I had it pretty high, not sure what it was at, but it was on all my gear with level 20+ mods. Then I healed some HMs and I healed the raid on normal. I didn't find any case where I felt I needed to get out heals faster or that I was too slow as is. I actually loved the flow of damage and how my bag of tricks had efficient ways to deal with them.

 

So the way I treat alacrity again is, do I need it? Is damage being put out so fast that I need to be able to keep up. And the answer in my case was, No. So I didn't see the point in haste.

So now I stack Surge and Crit. Crit scales so well and Surge is amazing. Since my spells are quick enough to heal up multiple people as is, it is nice when just one or two do it when one or both crit.

 

So I would say it is up to your skill and play style. If you have issues clicking and healing up multiple people then perhaps alacrity is worth it for you. If not then there is no point to it.