Seriously whats with the Alacrity on armor for non casters

[wigglebooty]

my charts and graphs actually depict alacrity as being only 97.62% useless.

 

 

 

so

 

so

 

you'd rather spend more time grinding BiS with less time having non BiS

 

than having more time with non BiS and the same amount of time with BiS?

 

 

 

no.

Here you go just twisting words to your own fancy again. Nobody said anything like that at all, I said it was just as lame to go that route but less of a slap in the face to the pvp community. Ill simply agree that you win and stop posting so you don't have to argue and can go take some reading comprehension classes, good day.

[General_Aldo]

Bioware purposely make armor have horrible stats.

 

So people spend more time playing and min/max. (at least I hope that's their reason)

[easeyway]

First let me compute the logic of placing the carrot further out.

By adding a stat to armor that is not optimal you are "placing the carrot a little further out" Meaning that carrot on a stick grind you had just got a little longer because you had to get the armor piece and then optimize it. This is not why I was asking the question in the first place but since it was brought up about the grind and getting fully optimized gear from the start I used this term, sorry if it was too complicated for you.

 

Next let me explain to you the difference between crit and alacrity on gear because obviously you do not understand that either. Crit while not being an optimal stat is still a dps increase over having nothing at all. Alacrity even at very high amounts on a non casting character will doubtfully make even the slightest difference in dps. If it does indeed lower the GCD that would also be a less than useful stat as based on the ping times the average user sees in this game cutting the GCD in half would be needed to even notice a difference. Having crit on your gear while grinding out a full suit of gear over a few weeks or months even depending on your play time is more desirable for a non caster than alacrity. If you do not now understand the difference between a useless stat and a less than desirable stat, I apologize that my question was too complicated for you.

 

Since you are being in such a friendly mood. Let me return the favor.

 

First, there is this thing called ability queue window. What this does, is send the command to cast an ability to the server ahead, so the server will have it every 1.5 seconds. Maximum ability queue window in this game is 1 second. That covers 1000ms latency for your information. It makes me laugh you think alacrity is a useless stat because of latency. I mean, are you ok playing with 1.6 GDC then? It's "only" 6% difference, something alacrity does the other way around.

 

Second, alacrity gives the most DPS/HPS per stat of all the stats in the game, according to the post 2.0 stat formula curves that you can google. That is, if we don't take into account ability cooldowns: alacrity doesn't lower powerful cooldowns, which are major DPS/HPS income (depends on the class), and that is why you can't just say 6% alacrity equals 6% more DPS. It does equal 6% more DPS when spamming abilities with no CD. You, however, were merely comparing caster vs. non caster. Pure DPS return doesn't depend if you are a caster or not, it depends how many powerful abilities you have, and how long their cooldowns are. Because then you don't benefit hitting stuff fast, you benefit hitting stuff hard, with your massive CD abilities.

 

Third, alacrity - unlike crit - comes with power. That right there makes it a pretty darn powerful (see what I did there) stat to some classes. And yes, VG is one of those. But keep it quiet, it's a secret.

 

I apologize if math and logic is too complicated for you.

Edited October 17, 2013 by easeyway

[skarlson]

Surge also comes with power so that makes alacrity still useless. You get more bang for the buck with surge/power.

[easeyway]

Oh yes, surge. Let's see how good your surge is:

 

Ok, 0 crit rating, you can get up to something like 20% critical chance (full main stat augs + 9% mainstat talent + legacy and companion buff)

 

Say you put about 400 into surge to get 1.7 critical multiplier from 1.5.

 

Now you just increased your DPS by 0.2*0.2 = 4%

 

400 alacrity gives more than 5% GDC/cast time reduction (Pulse Cannon anyone??? Massive build up required to get auto crit on rail, free SS etc etc???), and ammo regen...So, what's up with that???

 

Surge is ok to have, since it helps with big hitters hitting even more. Still doesn't beat alacrity by the margin people assume.

 

Because, what are you gona do once you hit the soft cap on surge, which is pretty darn fast?

 

In case you missed it.

 

Alacrity is crap b/c of the DR curve. If it didnt have such poor returns it could actually be beneficial to stack some for any class (lowering the GCD is almost always good)

 

Alacrity follows the same DR curves as accuracy and defense, which are only slightly below the crit curve. However, unlike crit, alacrity is not dependent of another stat (surge) to be effective. And, unlike crit, alacrity comes with power, like I pointed out. I also pointed out how surge is still dependent on crit, and has a very low soft cap, which makes it less desirable than it could be.

 

Also, unlike accuracy and defense, alacrity is a much more versatile stat.

 

Now, my argument is not "alacrity is the best". Because it's not. It's not that simple.

 

The argument is: it's not as bad as people assume it to be.

 

The point is to show that the majority of people around these forums do no research nor thinking themselves, but just repeat the same nonsense they hear a lot of the other people say. Because they can't think for themselves, they think that what the majority thinks, is right.

 

See the pattern there?

 

One of these arguments is this: "alacrity is useless".

 

Also, I could even go as far as saying "Power > all because it doesn't have diminishing returns" is another.

 

Because, Power is a constant stat. And when you compare a constant stat to something, like alacrity, you will notice that alacrity gives percental benefits. This means, the more levels and base damage BioWare adds, the more benefits the stat yields (the y% that remains the same). This cannot be said about Power. Power is the same x amount increase (0.23 If I recall correct) to bonus damage. 0.23 bonus to 1000 is 0,023%, but the same 0.23 to 2000 is only 0,0115%. This is the reason they "nerfed" crit in patch 2.0. Because as they increase base damage, they need to either lower the percental benefits of certain stats, or increase the static benefit of Power

 

At the moment, however, it seems that as far as comparing the 0.23 to the bonus damage ranges that we currently have (800-900), power seems to yield the best percental benefits as well. But, we don't know all the details on how Bonus Damage is applied with certain abilities, so we don't have all the information.

 

But it should give the idea for all you guys that things are not as simple as they seem at first.

Edited October 17, 2013 by easeyway

[skarlson]

Less so when you factor in abilities that have a guaranteed crit. TB>CL>FL pretty much guarateed crit with all CDs up. On top of that you have to stack way to much alacrity to make it of use which is why it is useless. Not that time off a GCD is bad, it just isn't that valuable when compared to what you give up. It is much easier to get 20% crit from stats and abilities before 5% crit buff and I don't give up my 76% surge. For PVP burst is king. For PVE you require accuracy above all else, that doesn't leave much room for alacrity unfortunately. If only its curve was better.

 

I would also like to point out, due to your comment on people not doing math, that people actually did do the math. The math points to accuracy being the most important PVE stat by far. Surge and power are by far the most important stats for PVP solely due to burst and all the automatic crit abilities.

Edited October 17, 2013 by skarlson

[easeyway]

Less so when you factor in abilities that have a guaranteed crit. TB>CL>FL pretty much guarateed crit with all CDs up. On top of that you have to stack way to much alacrity to make it of use which is why it is useless. Not that time off a GCD is bad, it just isn't that valuable when compared to what you give up. It is much easier to get 20% crit from stats and abilities before 5% crit buff and I don't give up my 76% surge. For PVP burst is king. For PVE you require accuracy above all else, that doesn't leave much room for alacrity unfortunately. If only its curve was better.

 

I would also like to point out, due to your comment on people not doing math, that people actually did do the math. The math points to accuracy being the most important PVE stat by far. Surge and power are by far the most important stats for PVP solely due to burst and all the automatic crit abilities.

 

Yes, guaranteed crit abilities make surge more appealing, that is true. And, I didn't forget that. It's in the part: "it's not that simple".

 

But first, I'd like to ask you why you think "You have to stack way to much alacrity to make it of use"?

 

The curve has diminishing returns (that means the function's slope gets smaller the more you stack it). This means that the more you stack it, the less you get in return. This logic of yours would only apply if the slope would get BIGGER the more you stack it, but this isn't the case. 1% of alacrity is still 1%. You might not notice it, but it's there. That 1% is still more than a lot (actually all of 'em) of the other stats would give you. Like I pointed out, alacrity stands on it's own. The relationship of Crit/Surge is a different story.

 

Second, may I ask you why YOU think accuracy is "the most important PVE stat by far".

 

Because, each point of accuracy effectively lowers your DPS, because of gearing in the game (you lose other, better stats by taking accuracy). Accuracy only affects white damage, which doesn't apply to a lot of the classes. It is also on a very bad curve in that power/surge/crit/alacrity are all better.

 

Now, you could say "well, hitting is important". Yes, it is. But DMG over a long period of time is more important in PvE where the total DMG matters more. In PvP, accuracy could in theory be important, as bad luck in a short fight could be fatal. Assumed that the accuracy can be gained while still maintaining ability to win fights.

 

To simplify: Each % of accuracy you get, you lose overall DPS more. It's better to hit 99 times every 100 abilities, when those 99 attacks are more than 1% bigger than the guy next to you with 100 hits, all more than 1% smaller than you. In other words: you have already made more DPS with those 99 attacks before your next attack misses than the guy hitting all 100 attacks. Yeah, missing big hitters, bad luck, all play role. But on average, the guy without accuracy SHOULD do more DMG, every time, all the time. Cuz actually the guy with 99% accuracy is making 101 attacks in the same duration the 100% accuracy guy is doing 100 attacks, because of alacrity. Yeah, with alacrity he's still effectively hitting 100 attacks in that time, and all of the attacks are bigger than the guy with 100% accuracy. Also, most of the attacks might be tech, so he could be very well hitting 101 attacks, all bigger, than your 100% accuracy guy.

 

So, what's going on???

 

Now, you could say that live parses tell us that certain specs with certain ability scores do best. Well, in that case, there's something happening behind the scenes which we don't know of solely by looking at the stat curves.

 

And that's what's interesting. That's what we should figure out. Because, not many people run parses with top gear, and all kinds of different mods. So, I don't 100% trust all the live parses either. But, if you think there has been a good thoroughly done testing somewhere, please link below, I would be very interested.

 

Now, I'm merely making all these assumptions based on the DR curves and using basic probability math. I don't have the whole picture, because I don't have the source code of the game. That means I may not be right, but the information I base my theory on (DR curves) seem to point to certain direction.

 

But see, you making the point: "there has been mathy posts that explain this" is exactly what's wrong with the community. The "mathy" posts don't matter if you don't understand them, now do they? You have to actually understand what they're saying to know for yourself. Or, if you have someone you trust that can really check the data for you, maybe even explain it to you. Science doesn't work like: "oh well, someone did a mathy post about it. I didn't much understand it, but I'm sure it's true".

Edited October 17, 2013 by easeyway