Our tier is useless (Healer concern)

[Cranberries]

It has alacrity on it.

 

Alacrity is a useless stat to our class.

 

WTB Crit/Surge pieces.

 

http://www.torhead.com/item/4XuSRdY

http://www.torhead.com/item/1suLg3w

http://www.torhead.com/item/1qGieMo

http://www.torhead.com/item/bO0lRgs

http://www.torhead.com/item/b6iP4sB

 

That's our tier. All 5 pieces have alacrity on. It's a useless stat.

 

The set bonuses, for those uninformed are:

2 set: increases supercharged gas/supercharged cell by 3 seconds. (get 50% more duration)

4 set: reduces cooldown on healing scan by 1.5 second, emergency heal by 3 seconds

 

the set 2 bonus is superb, but the 4 set is really weak.

 

I suggest all BHs remove the alacrity enhancement and replace it with a surge one, if they can find it ...

[Synthine]

haste

[PastyTheWhite]

How it is a useless stat?

 

Need maths bro.

[BloatedGuppy]

Short of potentially inducing heat issues, I'm not sure why a Bodyguard would scoff at alacrity. I understand why Powertechs don't want it, but a Bodyguard? It seems like a natural fit for both them and Arsenal.

[Cranberries]

It's useless because our healing is made efficient with Critical Efficiency. Requires the use of Healing Scan > Rapid Scan. This gives us, essentially, double the healing for half the cost. Under Supercharged Gas we get exactly 1 more Healing Scan off (even with no CD) as this would be the rotation:

 

1.5s (1.5s HS) > 3s (2 RS) > 4.5 (1.5s HS) > 6s (2s RS) > 7.5 (1.5s HS) > 9s (2s RS)

 

With haste, sure, under Supercharged Gas we get more casts off but we're still heat capped, effectively. Alacrity does nothing for heat so the more we cast - the faster we cast - the more heat we'll be generating.

 

There's no upside to Alacrity because of our resource mechanic.

 

Not to mention, as a Bodyguard BH I'm mostly MT healing for which I prefer more crit, and more surge. It's far better. Haste is good if you have HoTs or aren't resource capped, but in our situation critical strike rating and surge rating are far superior.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Cranberries

[PastyTheWhite]

Hmmmm. I could very well agree with you now. Useless ... no ... but is surge more useful... yes.

 

 

I will need to get to 50 and use a lot of surge and alacrity gear to have a better opinion.

[Argolith]

It's useless because our healing is made efficient with Critical Efficiency. Requires the use of Healing Scan > Rapid Scan. This gives us, essentially, double the healing for half the cost. Under Supercharged Gas we get exactly 1 more Healing Scan off (even with no CD) as this would be the rotation:

 

1.5s (1.5s HS) > 3s (2 RS) > 4.5 (1.5s HS) > 6s (2s RS) > 7.5 (1.5s HS) > 9s (2s RS)

 

With haste, sure, under Supercharged Gas we get more casts off but we're still heat capped, effectively. Alacrity does nothing for heat so the more we cast - the faster we cast - the more heat we'll be generating.

 

There's no upside to Alacrity because of our resource mechanic.

 

Not to mention, as a Bodyguard BH I'm mostly MT healing for which I prefer more crit, and more surge. It's far better. Haste is good if you have HoTs or aren't resource capped, but in our situation critical strike rating and surge rating are far superior.

 

Can you give me definitive numbers that back up your statement?

 

Oh wait, we don't have combat logs yet. I think you're just "Guessing".

[Cranberries]

Can you give me definitive numbers that back up your statement?

 

Oh wait, we don't have combat logs yet. I think you're just "Guessing".

 

How is a correct rotation over time, under our power CD, guessing?

 

Simply put, alacrity is useless. It wont reduce our heat costs, it wont increase our venting over time. It'll just decrease cast times and that wont benefit us with the same heat costs/venting rates.

[Argolith]

It will always come down to a question of reliable throughput vs longevity. Alacrity will give us more throughput at the cost of Longevity, this has always been and always will be the case (For those of us that played WoW anyway).

 

 

This is the same arguement, but we have no way of guessing which one is more effective at this point in time, without some serious number crunching. Which is not possible in this game at this time. And let me state that in WOW, haste won out a vast majority of the time.

 

So yes, you are just guessing.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Argolith

[Cranberries]

It will always come down to a question of reliable throughput vs longevity. Alacrity will give us more throughput at the cost of Longevity, this has always been and always will be the case (For those of us that played WoW anyway).

 

 

This is the same arguement, but we have no way of guessing which one is more effective at this point in time, without some serious number crunching. Which is not possible in this game at this time. And let me state that in WOW, haste won out a vast majority of the time.

 

So yes, you are just guessing.

 

Haste wins because you can increase your regen to suffice. In this game we cannot increase our regen (or degeneration, I guess). In this game we're also limited, there are no "mana pots", "innervates", "Mana Tides". Not to mention in WoW you have ridiculous mana pools that allows haste to be effective, compared to this game where we don't have "ridiculous" pools, we have very small pools actually.

[Argolith]

Haste wins because you can increase your regen to suffice. In this game we cannot increase our regen (or degeneration, I guess). In this game we're also limited, there are no "mana pots", "innervates", "Mana Tides". Not to mention in WoW you have ridiculous mana pools that allows haste to be effective, compared to this game where we don't have "ridiculous" pools, we have very small pools actually.

 

 

You're absolutely correct in that regard.

 

I do want to point out that there appear to be significant heat reduction talent synergies with alacrity that make me wary of agreeing with you. Hence I need to see numbers.

[Cranberries]

You're absolutely correct in that regard.

 

I do want to point out that there appear to be significant heat reduction talent synergies with alacrity that make me wary of agreeing with you. Hence I need to see numbers.

 

We get 9% Alacrity through talents and I feel it's far too much. Personally I'd rather Critical Reaction to increase Critical Strike by 5%, rather than Alacrity by 5%. Alacrity as a whole, for the class, seems weak. Both in terms of Arsenal DPS, and Bodyguard healing.

[Argolith]

We get 9% Alacrity through talents and I feel it's far too much. Personally I'd rather Critical Reaction to increase Critical Strike by 5%, rather than Alacrity by 5%. Alacrity as a whole, for the class, seems weak. Both in terms of Arsenal DPS, and Bodyguard healing.

 

Just bolded the important terms.

 

Again, I'm happy to wait until we have some kind of meter that will allow us to truly measure this before screaming the sky is falling.

 

I'll even bookmark this thread and come back and apologize to you and let you tell me "I Told You So!" if it turns out to be correct, but right now, I don't think being chicken little helps anything.

[Operandi]

I dont know what you guys are using as theory craft or what but I have been 50 for about 4 days now almost full Champ geared and have a 4/5 PvE set from Hard modes and Alacrity / Power is ALOT better than Surge / crit. I dont have numbers to support this all I have is healing my self through several dungeons the Alacrity at high en 50 is amazing my Rapid scan is down to 1.4 seconds and Healing Scan is .9 second cast. I have no issues due to my 4 piece which reduces the CD of Healing scan which then gives me a buff on reduce Heat on Rapid scan.

 

Alacrity / Power is what we need if we are going to be healers.

 

 

Thats my 2 cents.

[boredomsux]

I'm sorry, but alacrity isn't a useless stat. Faster healing is never useless, if you prefer to heal the MT then maybe it is. Maybe. Though, to me, due to heat production, when it comes to operations, Bodyguard is going to be focusing on the raid healing aspect. Looking at the Operatives skills, they are more suited to handle the big heals. Alacrity can maybe be improved to allow Bodyguards to have an easier time to MH, but healing faster is imperative.

 

In most raids, there's an instance in which massive damage is applied to the entire group. Alacrity is useful in this scenario to get both the MT and the rest of the group back to full hp, or at least a moderate amount of hp. The extra .5 seconds matters in this instance, especially in way of the MT, because as the boss does the massive aoe ability, the MT is still going to be getting smacked. So the faster you can heal the tank, the more likely you are to not wipe from the tank dying because the heals weren't fast enough after an instance like mentioned above. This even helps with interrupts and stuns, if the healer gets cc'ed and their remove incapacitating effects abilities is on CD, they have to wait it out, and then make up that lost time healing through haste. This is all based on previous experiences with other games.

 

I have yet to experience an operation as a Bodyguard healing, so this is all hypothetical, but every healer requires alacrity, Bodyguards aren't exempt from this. I do agree however, that alacrity may be more useful to other classes, but they can modify alacrity somehow to reduce CDs, especially on Expend Heat so that if we have an oh **** moment during an op, then you won't be incapable of healing for awhile after that. Or if BW isn't willing to do that, then maybe so that the stat reduces the amount of heat generated after using each ability.

 

Again, all speculation.

Thxkbai

[Mblythe]

I will gladly take that Alacrity as it will give me more downtime. It will always be more useful to have shorter cast times which leads to the heat dissipating after casting.

 

And in pvp, when I hit that supercharged gas to DPS a target, I want as many of those free Power Shots as I can get.

[FeLoNiouS]

It's useless because our healing is made efficient with Critical Efficiency. Requires the use of Healing Scan > Rapid Scan. This gives us, essentially, double the healing for half the cost. Under Supercharged Gas we get exactly 1 more Healing Scan off (even with no CD) as this would be the rotation:

 

1.5s (1.5s HS) > 3s (2 RS) > 4.5 (1.5s HS) > 6s (2s RS) > 7.5 (1.5s HS) > 9s (2s RS)

 

With haste, sure, under Supercharged Gas we get more casts off but we're still heat capped, effectively. Alacrity does nothing for heat so the more we cast - the faster we cast - the more heat we'll be generating.

 

There's no upside to Alacrity because of our resource mechanic.

 

Not to mention, as a Bodyguard BH I'm mostly MT healing for which I prefer more crit, and more surge. It's far better. Haste is good if you have HoTs or aren't resource capped, but in our situation critical strike rating and surge rating are far superior.

 

First of all, hiya Cranberries...not sure if you're the one from Port NoWhere in DC, but hi anyway.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I like the Alicrity on my gear. The rotation you gave would be for a long term sustained spike dmg scenario and I've yet to encounter such. Typically from my experience, even on boss fights, the damage isn't a sustained heavy dosage like that. I end up using a lot of the rapid fire between the actual heals which seems to help with any heat issues. The reason I like the Alicrity is because it feels like the cast time on our heals takes forever in the heat of battle. I like speeding up that heal then maintaining some rapid fires, big heal, rapid fires etc... Only once have I had the issue where I couldn't cast enough big heals fast enough for the spike damage, and that was on a non tank, acting as our tank in a 4 man heroic.

 

Seems to me that during boss fights, their damage varies from heavy, to light/none during different phases. I just try to use rapid fire unless necessary to call for big heals and always leave "vent heat" as my emergency button. I haven't done any 8 man raids, so if that's what you're up to and running in to these problems, then I have no answers or suggestions for that.

 

P.S. This isn't me telling you how to play, just me telling you how I play and why I like Alicrity.

Edited December 29, 2011 by FeLoNiouS

[TEHDARKNEZZ]

I think the thing is that healing isn't supposed to be the primary use of the class, its just something that is there in case you need it, or they wanted one more use for the class other than just pure DPS.

[Operandi]

I think the thing is that healing isn't supposed to be the primary use of the class, its just something that is there in case you need it, or they wanted one more use for the class other than just pure DPS.

 

Lol , What?

 

Bodygaurd healing if used properly and if the person knows what they are doing is one of the best most efficient healers in the game. It is just going to take people a while to get used to the "heat" aspect of healing and not having a Mana bar and the proper rotation to maximize healing and not allowing for heat to get past 50%.

[HarassMe]

alacrity forces you to use more rapid shots heals and keep an eye on your heat... i don't understand how this equates to LESS healing??

 

if you're able to case the same amount of spells, in a shorter time, therefore allowing multiple rapid shot heals... doesnt that equal MORE healing?

 

i realize people would much rather be able to spam the spells faster but i'll take the extra healing potential, even if its from some rapid shots.

[CericME]

I think the arguments in here break down to a few ways of thinking about this:

 

1. Alacracity speeds up are heals while sacrificing stats that make are healing more powerful. With are regen mechanic if we get into big damage we are going to have more heat because we are casting more spells and since the more heat we have the slower it dissipates we are going to mess ourselves over in the long run.

 

2. Alacracity speeds up my heals but this means I have more net down time to dissipate heat.

 

3. Honestly don't see heat management being much of a problem but, I like my heals to be faster so its easier to react.

 

I can see the point of 1. In long healing endurance challenge bosses that may be an issue much like haste always is for healer in every other game. This is not anything SWTOR specific. The twist in SWTOR is we don't have a Regen stat so, this may become more of an issue. Someone who believes in this philosophy will gear for things that make a few heals bigger.

 

I can see the other points as well. In the current tier of content with a proper group you rarely ever run into the worst case scenario 1 is talking about. The average case at the time isn't really favoring either style of stat balancing from reports.

 

Time will tell how Bioware will handle these fix power mechanics.

[tchu]

I will gladly take that Alacrity as it will give me more downtime. It will always be more useful to have shorter cast times which leads to the heat dissipating after casting.

 

This is the entire counter arguement to alacrity generating too much heat. That's a poor way of slating alacrity. With or without alacrity you are NOT going to spam heals as a Merc. You simply cannot. Getting more alacrity however, lets you get more heals out in a shorter amount of time when they are needed, followed, hopefully, but better downtime then. Sure you might reach heat thresholds that mathematically make it cost more than necessary, but more often than not you're going to find getting the heal off faster after some downtime is just fine.

Edited January 1, 2012 by tchu

[Lightmgl]

Theres only one thing that I can ask that should determine if Alacrity is useless or not for PVE and that is:

 

Does Alacrity reduce the GCD?

 

If it does not, it is pretty useless as with 0 alacrity we already push all of our abilities down below GCD speed except Rapid Scan which is down to about 1.8 (Not too far off GCD cap with animation and lag) and really does not need to be any lower as it is typically the least cast heal only being used if absolutely necessary or alternated with Healing Scan during Gas...

 

Crit and Surge seem to be the winning stats in general in this game for DPS and HPS. With a tech crit of 42% buffed and a surge of 90% it is just silly easy to heal and I find myself able to rapid shots way more often or even shoot the bosses. I will probably begin stacking Alacrity soon anyways though as I've hit the diminishing return barriers on Crit and Surge and they are getting really hard to pump further. Alacrity even without a reduced GCD can be slightly useful if you screw up and need to throw out a fast heal before the tank dies from the next attack. Usually I reserve Emergency Scan for that though.

 

Now if Alacrity pushes the GCD down below 1.5 that is a different story as it actually lets you pump out heals faster, but it doesn't feel like it does. Can't really tell without a timestamped combat log though but I'd like to think at 10+% you would notice it.

 

On a side note is it just me or does the Power stat feel really useless? The magnitude it adds is not nearly large enough compared to what other secondary stats give...

Edited January 1, 2012 by Lightmgl

[Abiza]

There's a major issue with everyone who claims that alacrity is bad due to heat issues with zero math to back anything up. You shouldn't be spamming any heal but Rapid Shots. Therefor, all of your arguments are flawed. Use the stat correctly = profit.

[Tweetee]

Theres only one thing that I can ask that should determine if Alacrity is useless or not for PVE and that is:

 

Does Alacrity reduce the GCD?

 

It reduces the GCD on skills with activation times. Whether or not it goes below 1 seconds, I can't tell you, though. On my Sorc, when popping Polarity Shift + Relic, it brings down my 1.5s cast time skills to 1s, and there's no downtime inbetween casts.