Alacrity concern

[Whojoo]

Ok I just thought of this concern. So the things I know that will happen:

- Ability cooldowns get shorter

- Ability internal cooldowns get shorter

- Damaging periodic effects get shorter and tick faster

- Buffs like class buffs and raid wide buffs duration stays unaffected. Think same counds for the raid debuffs.

- Might have missed something, not sure.

 

Now my concern. Mercs and Mandos can proc 3% alacrity if they crit with a heal or damage.

Does this procced alacrity also adjust already triggered internal cooldowns?

 

Example (source Dulfy Dicipline Calculator):

Assault Specialist Commando. No alacrity in gear so only the 2% from the dicipline.

 

I activate Charged Bolts, no crit, proc Ionic Accelerator on a (7.5 * 0.98) seconds internal cooldown.

I activate Mag Bolt, crit, proc Target Lock (3% alacrity gain)

I activate Charged Bolts, no crit

I activate Charged Bolts, no crit

I activate Charged Bolts, no crit, proc Target Lock ends here (-3% alacrity)

I activate Charged Bolts, no crit, proc Ionic accelerator or not?

 

If the procced alacrity does not adjust already triggered internal cooldowns then it could screw up rotations.

To keep using the above example, current Assault Specialist Commandos do not want alacrity since their Ionic Accelerator could not proc due to alacrity currently not affecting internal cooldowns.

But if in 3.0 alacrity does not adjust internal cooldowns we will face the same problem again.

[ThorgrimLutgen]

I think the idea is to get rid of all the power stacking, so people will actually have to stack accuracy/alacrity to be optimally effective now......I think.

 

I watched the last stream and am sure they said alacrity will speed up anything and everything that can be speeded up.

[Ryuku-sama]

I think the idea is to get rid of all the power stacking, so people will actually have to stack accuracy/alacrity to be optimally effective now......I think.

 

Alac is in the same slot as Surge and Accuracy (Shield too but that's a non-issue) Power is in the same slot as Crit (Defense and Absorb too). You can't trade Alacrity for Power outside of augments.

 

I watched the last stream and am sure they said alacrity will speed up anything and everything that can be speeded up.

 

The question is exactly how will it work. Will it adjust the CD of already trigered ICD and abilities if your alacrity changes or not?? If it doesn't it will screw up many rotation. Learn to read before talking. This is an issue that could be seen not only for Inno Merc but also for Marksman Sniper (assuming Sniper Volley isn't redesigned), Carnage Mara 9assuming Berzerk isn't redesigned) and Lightning Sorc (with Focal Lightning). It would also plague SCC's Merc and Arsenal Merc SCG.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Ryuku-sama

[Whojoo]

I think the idea is to get rid of all the power stacking, so people will actually have to stack accuracy/alacrity to be optimally effective now......I think.

 

I watched the last stream and am sure they said alacrity will speed up anything and everything that can be speeded up.

 

I know it speeds things up (but I doubt it is in power's stat spot but don't quote me on that).

 

My issue is with sudden speed ups. With the current numbers an Assault Specialist Commando has like a 5 GCD rotation due to the proc timer on Ionic Accelerator being 7.5 seconds.. If you have a sudden speed up after triggering the 7.5 seconds internal cooldown, will that triggered internal cooldown be speed up as well? Or do I risk the chance of suddenly needing 6 GCD in a rotation?

 

I think this could potentially be an issue since the sudden speed up is a proc as well.

 

The question is exactly how will it work. Will it adjust the CD of already trigered ICD and abilities if your alacrity changes or not?? If it doesn't it will screw up many rotation. Learn to read before talking. This is an issue that could be seen not only for Inno Merc but also for Marksman Sniper (assuming Sniper Volley isn't redesigned), Carnage Mara 9assuming Berzerk isn't redesigned) and Lightning Sorc (with Focal Lightning). It would also plague SCC's Merc and Arsenal Merc SCG.

 

^this

Edited November 12, 2014 by Whojoo

[DarthMurdek]

I am 99% certain when they talked about alacrity in the combat livestream the mentioned internal cooldowns being reduced. although they did not specifically say. cooldowns already in progress would be shortened. i highly doubt they overlooked this. since alacrity lowering the ICD of things sole purpose is to not **** up rotations.

 

but we shall see how it goes

[Orizuru]

I would not expect a cooldown timer to shorten in real-time from alacrity procs that occur after the cooldown began. It just seems way too intense on the usage of server resources.

 

I would expect the cooldown timer to be 100% based upon the alacrity value at the moment the cooldown timer begins counting.

 

If the system has to update the cooldown timer's interval between ticks and total length in real-time by checking the alacrity value on each tick we would run into two major issues that I can see. The first being the amount of server resources that would be needed to do this with every single cooldown timer initiated by every single player in the game. The second issue being the ability to update these timers between ticks without lag causing a tick to occur before the timer has been updated from the last tick.

[Whojoo]

You never ever try to re-adjust this many timers on every tick (or we might be thinking about different ticks).

You would adjust timers once it is relevant, so when alacrity gets adjusted. I do however agree that it could be resource intensive to re-calculate timers this often (since the proc for mando/merc has no ICD and triggers on crit and probably fall off and re-apply fairly often).

 

But I am concerned that mainly the rotation for Assault Specialist Commando and the Innovative Ordnance Mercenary will suffer. Basically since we don't know enough about other classes yet

While adjustment player wise is easy (Mag Bolt/Mag Shot can be delayed since it is now a 100% certain proc), you might miss out on Mag Bolts or Mag Shots which is a damage loss. I know Bioware mentioned a lower dps overall, but I doubt that this was their solution

 

Although the main reason for this thread was to voice my concern and hope that the developers would see this. Building a check on maybe a few timers would not be that hard or resource intensive but could help tons in quality of life. And timers would then be restricted to only internal cooldowns.

[Ryuku-sama]

It is worst than that. Each spec has a number of GCD between their main proc. Supercharged Celerity just destroy every rotation if the CD of every single abilities and proc isn't adjusted on the fly. Same goes with Sniper Volley and Berzerk. And Focal Lightning proc, and Arsenal Supercharged Gas, and Inno Merc.

[Dras_Keto]

Im betting that after the expansion drops and everyone who has seen the actual data can talk about it and everyone else gets to look at things for themselves, we are all going to realise that despite how much hype Alacrity has been given, we still are going to want to avoid it like the plague if we arent healers. Just like the last time they tried to make it worth while.

 

The problem is at the start of an expansion stat budgets are going to be effectively low. We will have TONS of rating, but it wont translate into much as far as the actual stats go (Level 60 conversion rates vs. level 55). Everybody knows this. It has to work this way so that we have room to get more powerful as we get better gear... etc.

 

The other problem is Surge exists and it shares the same stat pool as Alacrity and Accuracy (at least as far as DPS gearing is concerned). We have absolutely NO choice about Accuracy. We have to have enough of it to reach our caps or extremely close to them. Anything less is a pretty significant loss of DPS. After that, especially at the beginning of an expansion with the very low rate of return on stat rating, we are only going to have so much available rating left to allocate. And, unless things change significantly, we will get vastly more return investing that rating in Surge.

 

Im betting that, shortly after 3.0 drops we are going to see that stat budgets and conversion rates are such that it wont be worth investing in Alacrity at all until somewhere close to the end of the expansion's content cycle.

[ArcadioBuenida]

Yes, it will speed up ICDs. The entire point of the alacrity change was to get people to do their normal rotation, just faster. This means that procs need to proc on the same alacrity scale that everything else is following, i.e., ICDs will shorten when celerity is popped (even if it's already on CD) just like your Full Auto CD will shorten (even if it's already on CD).

 

Testers would have caught this by now if it wasn't the case and the "normal rotation, just faster" statements by Musco and Co. would have been amended.

 

Also, don't put all your eggs in the surge basket. By using my limited mathematical skills, a crit rating at 25% plus surge at 50% is an increase of 125 damage per 1000. This is pretty much base. You get it by breathing. Crit rating at 25% plus surge at 75% is an increase of 190 damage per 1000. All that surge only nets you 65 extra damage per 1000, on average. That's pretty equal to getting no surge and having 6.5% alacrity. So we'll see how rating winds up relating to percentages when the patch hits. All I'm saying is that It'll be interesting to parse. I don't think it's an open and shut case at this point, and if BW is doing a good job, each choice will wind up being pretty equal so that players can run either, according to their own playstyle and preference, without automatically sacrificing performance.

[Levram]

With Supercharged Celerity being added to the game as a 10 second group-wide 10% alacrity buff, that would require that everyone's internal cooldowns and Globals speed-up on the fly so that the exact same rotations are maintained, just faster, which is how the effect of alacrity has been described by the Developers.

 

Proc timing changing on the fly is also likely a reason why the Developers adding the "proc highlight" feature to quickbars in 3.0, so that player's are aware of real-time faster procs.

[LordArtemis]

Im betting that after the expansion drops and everyone who has seen the actual data can talk about it and everyone else gets to look at things for themselves, we are all going to realise that despite how much hype Alacrity has been given, we still are going to want to avoid it like the plague if we arent healers. Just like the last time they tried to make it worth while.

 

The problem is at the start of an expansion stat budgets are going to be effectively low. We will have TONS of rating, but it wont translate into much as far as the actual stats go (Level 60 conversion rates vs. level 55). Everybody knows this. It has to work this way so that we have room to get more powerful as we get better gear... etc.

 

The other problem is Surge exists and it shares the same stat pool as Alacrity and Accuracy (at least as far as DPS gearing is concerned). We have absolutely NO choice about Accuracy. We have to have enough of it to reach our caps or extremely close to them. Anything less is a pretty significant loss of DPS. After that, especially at the beginning of an expansion with the very low rate of return on stat rating, we are only going to have so much available rating left to allocate. And, unless things change significantly, we will get vastly more return investing that rating in Surge.

 

Im betting that, shortly after 3.0 drops we are going to see that stat budgets and conversion rates are such that it wont be worth investing in Alacrity at all until somewhere close to the end of the expansion's content cycle.

 

I think Dras is right on this one. I don't expect Alacrity to become the new darling despite the hype.

[Orizuru]

I think Dras is right on this one. I don't expect Alacrity to become the new darling despite the hype.

 

Agreed. I think the primary goal the devs had for Alacrity with this change was to simply make it be less of a garbage stat to try and make it useful enough that people stop downgrading gear to avoid it. I would not expect Alacrity to become better than an equal amount of any other stats for the classes where it isn't already better than those other stats.

[Whojoo]

Yes, it will speed up ICDs. The entire point of the alacrity change was to get people to do their normal rotation, just faster. This means that procs need to proc on the same alacrity scale that everything else is following, i.e., ICDs will shorten when celerity is popped (even if it's already on CD) just like your Full Auto CD will shorten (even if it's already on CD).

 

Like I said, my concern is that already triggered ICD won't be adjusted.

 

Testers would have caught this by now if it wasn't the case and the "normal rotation, just faster" statements by Musco and Co. would have been amended.

 

True, like I said it is just a concern with the hope that the devs notice it in case that they did not think of this (or the testers).

 

Im betting that after the expansion drops and everyone who has seen the actual data can talk about it and everyone else gets to look at things for themselves, we are all going to realise that despite how much hype Alacrity has been given, we still are going to want to avoid it like the plague if we arent healers. Just like the last time they tried to make it worth while.

 

The problem is at the start of an expansion stat budgets are going to be effectively low. We will have TONS of rating, but it wont translate into much as far as the actual stats go (Level 60 conversion rates vs. level 55). Everybody knows this. It has to work this way so that we have room to get more powerful as we get better gear... etc.

 

The other problem is Surge exists and it shares the same stat pool as Alacrity and Accuracy (at least as far as DPS gearing is concerned). We have absolutely NO choice about Accuracy. We have to have enough of it to reach our caps or extremely close to them. Anything less is a pretty significant loss of DPS. After that, especially at the beginning of an expansion with the very low rate of return on stat rating, we are only going to have so much available rating left to allocate. And, unless things change significantly, we will get vastly more return investing that rating in Surge.

 

Im betting that, shortly after 3.0 drops we are going to see that stat budgets and conversion rates are such that it wont be worth investing in Alacrity at all until somewhere close to the end of the expansion's content cycle.

 

I personally think we will notice more alacrity usage for at least certain classes. Like with Assault Specialist Commando, if done well you can get 3 Mag Bolts (which means 3 100% certain ticks from Plasma Cell) in the super charged cell buff with 5% alacrity (4.77 rounded up). 2% from the class, 3% from a passive for 6 seconds IF you crit. With some luck ~1% from gear could be plenty for 4.77% or higher on average.

Though that is if the ICD adjusts on sudden alacrity increases and decreases.

 

Ofcourse surge is the tradeoff, but in certain situations you could gain from it. Probably depends on the class and spec and the difference in dps is probably less than 100, but still

Edited November 12, 2014 by Whojoo