crit/surge vs alacrity/power for healing

[murlo]

I was wondering if anyone has experimented between crit/surge and alacrity/power. right now I am ala/power. It works well, but i was wondering if anyone has done both and has a preference. Also, is there a alacrity cap, or diminishing returns point, because when I pop trinket and stim its over 1000 ala bonus and that should make like instant casts but they aren't...anyone with answers?

[Ewert]

Think of alacrity is an output % increase (calculate as 1/(1-haste%), thus 20% = 1/0.8 = 25% output increase), as such it is more powerful than power, crit or surge for casttime abilities but does not increase overall long term output by as much. There is no true cap, that is reachable. A slight diminishing returns curve, but it remains to be strongest for bursting compared to other stats even till what is max reachable in game at the moment. Edited March 27, 2012 by Ewert

[Yazule]

I was wondering if anyone has experimented between crit/surge and alacrity/power. right now I am ala/power. It works well, but i was wondering if anyone has done both and has a preference. Also, is there a alacrity cap, or diminishing returns point, because when I pop trinket and stim its over 1000 ala bonus and that should make like instant casts but they aren't...anyone with answers?

 

from everything i have read alacraty should be at 10 to 12%, crit around 30%, surge.. i think 70% multiplier and then stack power power power power.

 

power is the only thing with little/no diminishing returns.

 

this is 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand info all combined to a simple sentence... this is after surge nerf....

 

surge is the least important stat, i would rate it alacrity>(crit=power)>surge

 

the value of crit up to cap is equal (or close enough) to power

[Ewert]

from everything i have read alacraty should be at 10 to 12%, crit around 30%, surge.. i think 70% multiplier and then stack power power power power.

 

power is the only thing with little/no diminishing returns.

 

this is 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand info all combined to a simple sentence... this is after surge nerf....

 

surge is the least important stat, i would rate it alacrity>(crit=power)>surge

 

the value of crit up to cap is equal (or close enough) to power

Power is incorrectly said to have no DR, but that is only because power is a value boost and the others are % boosts. With straight value boosts the DR is _inherent_ in the effect of said boost, thus a rating based DR is not required. For % increases, there is also an inherent DR, but there are also rating -> effect DR. For inverse % increases such as haste, there is an inherent _INCREASING RESULTS_ effect (going from 98% haste to 99% is 100% increase, as an extreme example, while still being only 1%), thus there has to be a _stronger_ DR in the rating -> effect just to get into "effective DR" happening.

 

The above mentioned % cutoffs are theoretical stationary non-target switching non-moving healbot values. They are not practical in-game as such. Actually I'd say at all costs to avoid being at the breakpoint, and aim atleast 1-2% higher minimum, because any kind of interruptance of healspam will cause you to miss the "calculated" extra healing scan.

 

Anyways, if you just want numbers:

100-150 surge rating

250-350 crit rating

all alacrity talents (1 point for the crit proc is optional, but have 2 for 4% and atleast 1 for the 5% proc)

power and alacrity the rest, if you skimp on alacrity use alacrity relics and adrenals

if you have slow fingers / reactions higher alacrity can help combat that

even if you have supergamer fingers and reflexes, fully stacked alacrity is not worthless

[murlo]

well here is why I ask, I'm sitting at about 11% for alacrity right now. That makes my healing scan about 1.3 sec cast time and rapid scan 1.8 sec roughly. However, I am rolling alacrity adrenal and alacrity relics, which when used in tandem will boost alacrity to approximately 23%. Now my healing scan is approximately 1.2 and rapid scan is approximately 1.5 sec. Now I know no one has concrete numbers from a healing meter, but I feel like alacrity is not as beneficial as the other stats. With trinkets I get near a 1000 point boost to alacrity, and that only really cuts off 0.3 second of rapid scan and 0.1 seconds of healing scan.

 

Now I am talking for pvp so that extra 1000 and roughly 380 I have on my gear doesn't help any of my instant casts which make up a lot of my healing in pvp( when I am moving). Not to mention faster heals= increased heat output (which I know can be properly managed, but still is true). It seems that power/crit/surge (in that order) may be more beneficial for pvp because they will produce smaller amounts of heat, they are beneficial to my instant casts, which is beneficial to all my abilities not just my cast timed abilities. Am I way off base here or am I onto something.

[murlo]

well here is why I ask, I'm sitting at about 11% for alacrity right now. That makes my healing scan about 1.3 sec cast time and rapid scan 1.8 sec roughly. However, I am rolling alacrity adrenal and alacrity relics, which when used in tandem will boost alacrity to approximately 23%. Now my healing scan is approximately 1.2 and rapid scan is approximately 1.5 sec. Now I know no one has concrete numbers from a healing meter, but I feel like alacrity is not as beneficial as the other stats. With trinkets I get near a 1000 point boost to alacrity, and that only really cuts off 0.3 second of rapid scan and 0.1 seconds of healing scan.

 

Now I am talking for pvp so that extra 1000 and roughly 380 I have on my gear doesn't help any of my instant casts which make up a lot of my healing in pvp( when I am moving). Not to mention faster heals= increased heat output (which I know can be properly managed, but still is true). It seems that power/crit/surge (in that order) may be more beneficial for pvp because they will produce smaller amounts of heat, they are beneficial to my instant casts, which is beneficial to all my abilities not just my cast timed abilities. Am I way off base here or am I onto something.

[Achyuta]

from everything i have read alacraty should be at 10 to 12%, crit around 30%, surge.. i think 70% multiplier and then stack power power power power.

 

power is the only thing with little/no diminishing returns.

 

this is 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand info all combined to a simple sentence... this is after surge nerf....

 

surge is the least important stat, i would rate it alacrity>(crit=power)>surge

 

the value of crit up to cap is equal (or close enough) to power

 

My question, is what about dots? I was thinking about using a lot of surge for my dots, would that mean the damage is more?

[Yazule]

Power is incorrectly said to have no DR, but that is only because power is a value boost and the others are % boosts. With straight value boosts the DR is _inherent_ in the effect of said boost, thus a rating based DR is not required. For % increases, there is also an inherent DR, but there are also rating -> effect DR. For inverse % increases such as haste, there is an inherent _INCREASING RESULTS_ effect (going from 98% haste to 99% is 100% increase, as an extreme example, while still being only 1%), thus there has to be a _stronger_ DR in the rating -> effect just to get into "effective DR" happening.

 

The above mentioned % cutoffs are theoretical stationary non-target switching non-moving healbot values. They are not practical in-game as such. Actually I'd say at all costs to avoid being at the breakpoint, and aim atleast 1-2% higher minimum, because any kind of interruptance of healspam will cause you to miss the "calculated" extra healing scan.

 

Anyways, if you just want numbers:

100-150 surge rating

250-350 crit rating

all alacrity talents (1 point for the crit proc is optional, but have 2 for 4% and atleast 1 for the 5% proc)

power and alacrity the rest, if you skimp on alacrity use alacrity relics and adrenals

if you have slow fingers / reactions higher alacrity can help combat that

even if you have supergamer fingers and reflexes, fully stacked alacrity is not worthless

 

 

You notice i said littl/no DR ... basically the DR is not noticable relative ... i didnt want to write all of that down, so i simplified.

[Yazule]

well here is why I ask, I'm sitting at about 11% for alacrity right now. That makes my healing scan about 1.3 sec cast time and rapid scan 1.8 sec roughly. However, I am rolling alacrity adrenal and alacrity relics, which when used in tandem will boost alacrity to approximately 23%. Now my healing scan is approximately 1.2 and rapid scan is approximately 1.5 sec. Now I know no one has concrete numbers from a healing meter, but I feel like alacrity is not as beneficial as the other stats. With trinkets I get near a 1000 point boost to alacrity, and that only really cuts off 0.3 second of rapid scan and 0.1 seconds of healing scan.

 

Now I am talking for pvp so that extra 1000 and roughly 380 I have on my gear doesn't help any of my instant casts which make up a lot of my healing in pvp( when I am moving). Not to mention faster heals= increased heat output (which I know can be properly managed, but still is true). It seems that power/crit/surge (in that order) may be more beneficial for pvp because they will produce smaller amounts of heat, they are beneficial to my instant casts, which is beneficial to all my abilities not just my cast timed abilities. Am I way off base here or am I onto something.

 

from what i can see power is the best relic to click, with crit being a slight second only because of proc's on heat venting ... this is just what it "feels" like to me.

[Yazule]

My question, is what about dots? I was thinking about using a lot of surge for my dots, would that mean the damage is more?

 

not playing pyro i have done little/no research into the effects of alacrity on DOTS

[Achyuta]

not playing pyro i have done little/no research into the effects of alacrity on DOTS

 

Thanks for the response. I don't think alacrity will do anything with dots, since it effects the speed of casting, not the effects of dots. I was hoping that someone who has experience with surge/dots could tell me.

[TheZen]

With 2 piece pve and both alacrity talents, you only need about 221 alacrity if you want to do 6 rotation of Healing Scan > Rapid Scan during SCG.

 

If you want to do 7 rotation, you'll need 1134 alacrity which is just completely stupid to try to get.

 

 

So in essence, power is your priority while trying to get ~30% crit, 70% surge, 221 alacrity.

 

Source (scrolldown a bit for number of alacrity needed for xyz numbers of HS > RS rotations)

Edited March 27, 2012 by TheZen

[Ewert]

well here is why I ask, I'm sitting at about 11% for alacrity right now. That makes my healing scan about 1.3 sec cast time and rapid scan 1.8 sec roughly. However, I am rolling alacrity adrenal and alacrity relics, which when used in tandem will boost alacrity to approximately 23%. Now my healing scan is approximately 1.2 and rapid scan is approximately 1.5 sec. Now I know no one has concrete numbers from a healing meter, but I feel like alacrity is not as beneficial as the other stats. With trinkets I get near a 1000 point boost to alacrity, and that only really cuts off 0.3 second of rapid scan and 0.1 seconds of healing scan.

 

Now I am talking for pvp so that extra 1000 and roughly 380 I have on my gear doesn't help any of my instant casts which make up a lot of my healing in pvp( when I am moving). Not to mention faster heals= increased heat output (which I know can be properly managed, but still is true). It seems that power/crit/surge (in that order) may be more beneficial for pvp because they will produce smaller amounts of heat, they are beneficial to my instant casts, which is beneficial to all my abilities not just my cast timed abilities. Am I way off base here or am I onto something.

Yes you are quite off base in your evaluation. If you put the numbers in and calculate it, you will find that the alacrity boosts your output more than any of power/crit/surge relic/adrenals, if you have proper values of them already (around those mentioned above).

 

Also for pvp, against any opposition worth a damn, heat output is kinda irrelevant, you should be getting cc'd and thrown back plenty enough to not be able to keep up constant healing, all the more reason for more alacrity to actually get off proper heals instead of weak or long CD timed instants.

 

The times I have really ran out of resource in pvp, and I do quite a lot of it (have topped 600k healing done, regular amounts in a full time match are 300-400k and 100-150k dmg), are nearly zero. Honestly I can't remember a time when I have ran out of heat in pvp and not have vent heat up. If it's a proper team opposite, you may be able to get into vent heat range once or twice early on, from that point on you will be getting focus, cc, knockbacks, and you'll be lucky to get anywhere near 40+ much less overheat.

 

Granted I do throttle back instinctively, but I am also extremely sharp on not overhealing people, thus it is a more "waste not, want not" issue than overheating from real healing.

 

Also, when you get resolve full, if it is a tough skirmish that alacrity will be golden. PvP is _more_ about haste than PvE is, no questions asked.

[Ewert]

With 2 piece pve and both alacrity talents, you only need about 221 alacrity if you want to do 6 rotation of Healing Scan > Rapid Scan during SCG.

 

If you want to do 7 rotation, you'll need 1134 alacrity which is just completely stupid to try to get.

 

 

So in essence, power is your priority while trying to get ~30% crit, 70% surge, 221 alacrity.

 

Source (scrolldown a bit for number of alacrity needed for xyz numbers of HS > RS rotations)

 

And as I said earlier, this is a perfect example of the problem of blind focus on non-moving non-interrupted non-target switching non-anything-else-than-healbotting.

 

Especially if you have any focus on pvp, where target switching is rampant and chaotic, LoS issues etc. even on allies. Also being a fully burst vs burst situation in PvP, the difference is compounded by the pure HPS you are able to push through, which is highest from alacrity (after the values mentioned in my initial post on this thread are fulfilled).

[_droider_]

And what role does this have, come 1.2? I really try to feel out what ratio works best through my own experiences, but with all you guys that do structured testing (now and in PTS with parsers), all I'm getting are mixed signals.

 

First it's "30/70, 10-12% alacrity, stack power".

 

Then it's "alacrity is useless due to a piss-poor resource mechanic". (even more so, with the results of 1.2 tests by RuQu & Co.)

 

But here we are again talking about alacrity being top priority again? Yes I understand it's probably confusion on my part between max PVE vs max PVP effectiveness, but is that all it really is? Or is this proff that everything is subject to the person behind the keys (reaction time, pure heal vs pseudo-hybrid, baddies vs min/max'rs, etc...)?

 

Edit: late edit, but I have successfully healed all NMM content pre-1.2, with alacrity builds and surge builds, so meh.

Edited March 29, 2012 by _droider_

[Tashim]

I play with 0 alacrity, and no alacrity talents, and I don't have any trouble with heat or healing throughput. I keep about 30% crit, which I get from implants/ear/aim, and I've replaced all my enhancements with power+surge ones (puts me at around 77% surge) The surge isn't really that important, but having over 500 power makes things pretty trivial.

 

Alacrity is viable for burst healing, but for sustained healing, power is unbeatable.

[zeroskaterMHS]

And as I said earlier, this is a perfect example of the problem of blind focus on non-moving non-interrupted non-target switching non-anything-else-than-healbotting.

 

Especially if you have any focus on pvp, where target switching is rampant and chaotic, LoS issues etc. even on allies. Also being a fully burst vs burst situation in PvP, the difference is compounded by the pure HPS you are able to push through, which is highest from alacrity (after the values mentioned in my initial post on this thread are fulfilled).

 

You are certainly correct that my simulations for alacrity focus on non-moving, non-interrupted, and so on (though I'd argue that it's very easy to switch targets during a cast) the point was to simulate the best conditions specifically for a pve scenario to get an idea of how much Alacrity you need to achieve an additional HS->RS cast. That means as soon as you introduce a new variable such as movement, interruption, etc. you will not achieve the additional HS->RS cast.

 

Unfortunately, it's a bit tedious to simulate movement (if you want to do it correctly) and I will not be including it in future simulations. I am currently running some intensive simulations to determine the optimal stats for going into 1.2 and once the new gear gets stats I'll be simulating the optimal stats for those as well. Then once that data has been acquired I will testing it against hard "real world" data (i.e. combat logs) to determine what works and what does not.

[Yazule]

I play with 0 alacrity, and no alacrity talents, and I don't have any trouble with heat or healing throughput. I keep about 30% crit, which I get from implants/ear/aim, and I've replaced all my enhancements with power+surge ones (puts me at around 77% surge) The surge isn't really that important, but having over 500 power makes things pretty trivial.

 

Alacrity is viable for burst healing, but for sustained healing, power is unbeatable.

 

you healing NM raid? or pvp? or both?

[Tashim]

healing nightmare mode pve.

[Ewert]

healing nightmare mode pve.

You are wasting awful lot on the surge to gain that power though, the returns on surge are very bad especially considering overhealing.

 

My current stats are 431 alacrity and 334 power, 36.78% crit and 62.88 (+15% from talents = 77.88%) surge (intentionally low, but wouldn't mind having a single item more with surge on it, which will happen at 1.2 I guess). With a stim up but otherwise unbuffed.

 

170ish more power would result in approx maybe 3% extra healing (little lost to overheals), the 15% surge around 4% maybe (lots lost to overheals however). The haste gives me 27% more output totally controlled for burst healing compared.

 

The (rhetorical) question is:

 

If you have no troubles with your output as is (depends a lot on raid composition so always a fluctuating relative thing, overall output that is), why totally gimp your burst healing rate as well as your reaction time with all that quite badly DR-hit surge that comes with your attempt to max power?

 

Mind you, 1.2 will change all this, depending on how it ends up getting into live, but at the moment the hurdles to cross are:

 

Heat management skills

Group member "not-stupid-skill"

 

After those two, rest is gravy, but alacrity will give you _massively_ better reactive ability to "ohpoop" situations as well as movement/interrupt prone situations to maximize gas time.

[Tashim]

I'll agree that after a certain amount of surge, alacrity will be more useful, but I just don't see it as necessary. IA gear comes with enhancements that have more power (and less endurance), they just happen to have surge instead of alacrity. I consider both to be in the running for the worst secondary stat that actually has any impact.

 

While casting .1 or .2 seconds faster may help you get an ability off before an interrupt (like when fighting karagga, as his tunneling drill is random target), I find increasing the power of instant-cast heals like emergency scan and kolto missile make more of an impact, especially on fights like Soa, where you have alot of people taking alot of damage. During transition phases, I do about half of the healing needed on the move. (The 3 target limit of kolto missile does irk me, but I still find it very useful).

 

There are only a couple fights that really need burst healing, like foreman crusher during his frenzy. These times are, however, predictable, and easy enough to save supercharged gas for them. I don't find my burst healing to be lacking, and some alacrity could still improve it further. But, I view healing on the move to be more of a weakness. Its really a matter of preference, I suppose. I just wanted to make it known that alacrity isn't needed for any content currently in the game.

[Ewert]

I just wanted to make it known that alacrity isn't needed for any content currently in the game.

And I just wanted to make it known that stacking full alacrity (as in wearing the gear they give us) works just fine for any content currently in the game, and that includes hardmode solo healing both OPs, which is much harder than NM. =P

 

On the upside, I have double-triple the reaction time window than 0% haste and best healing burst in-game as well as quite damnably high dmg burst with Muzzle Fluting. On the downside, I ... I ... well considering I've done it all, don't see a downside. Yes, my instants are not as powerful, luckily they are not the bread and butter of our healing.

 

Come 1.2 all bets are off, but for the current live game above stands.