Alacrity: Time for a Change

[Spurnshadow.3678]

This change communicates to me that effort is being garnered from theoretical information and raids. That's very concerning. This change seems to be solely due to the high uptimes in raids. This doesn't happen in PvP. While we can achieve high quickness in WvW, it is extremely short lived with the massive amount of boon corruption. [sarcasm] Thank you, btw, for creating one more boon that can be corrupted. [end sarcasm]. While I think it's good to shake things up to make raids not so dependent on one class, don't for a minute think you're fooling us that this was an issue across all game modes. I think giving more professions access to alacrity would have gone much farther to promote composition diversity. This seems like you're just re-engineering the wheel.

[Knox.8962]

> @"Yasi.9065" said:

> Where should I start... theres so many misconceptions here ;)

>

> Lets start with Chrono alacrity uptime and gw2raidar logs. Arcdps doesnt "pause" during invul phases, hence why every boss except MO has below 90% alacrity uptime. So can we please stop compairing apples and ... cars... and focus instead of what is achievable alacrity uptime during dmg phases?

>

> Chrono alacrity, main source is... especially on commander/minstrel gear... shield phantasms. 2 shield phantasms and you are golden. So, the only difficulty is atm rotating your phantasms in a way to not loose those shield phantasms.

 

Alacrity: Given a standard CS rotation of 90s (before alacrity) you get the following alacrity "availability"

During a CS rotation @ 90s (w/ alacrity = 71.4s)

 

* 2 Avengers - 4s every 7.6s = 52.63%

* 3 WoR casts @ 7s each = 29.4%

* 4 WoA casts @ 2s each = 11.2%

* 4 WoE casts @ 2s each = 11.2%

* All together that is a total of **104.43% Alacrity uptime "availability"** given a 100% perfect rotation.

 

Quickness: During the same 90s CS rotation, you'll get the following sources of quickness

* 4 WoA @ 8s = 44.8%

* 4 ToT @ 6s = 33.6%

* 4 SoI @ 6s = 33.6%

* 4 Ill. Insp procs @ 6s = 33.6%

* All together that is **145.6% Quickness uptime "availability"** given a 100% perfect rotation.

 

(Note that dropping Tides of Time out of this rotation still provides 112% uptime, which is more cushion than you get on alacrity today)

 

The reason alacrity uptime looks lower in ARC logs isn't because the meter records through phase changes etc. The reason it looks lower is because you have virtually ZERO cushion on alacrity if you are playing perfectly and getting hit by every single alacrity source. Any movement or interruption in that causes lost alacrity that you simply can't make up. Quickness does not suffer the same fate because it is available far in excess of what is needed (even without Time Warp).

[zealex.9410]

Alacrity is too powerfull to only be in one class. Unless u guy want this game to turn into "Unique Modifiers 2"

[OriOri.8724]

> @"Donari.5237" said:

> > @"Robert Gee.9246" said:

> > > @"Sephylon.4938" said:

> > > Since alac is becoming a boon, will other classes gain access to the alacrity boon as well or will it still be chrono and rev that can give alac?

> > We don't plan to add alacrity to other professions at this time.

>

> You mean other than in one offs like in the OP "You'll find alacrity in some unexpected places, such as the Thief's stolen bundle "Consume Plasma," and on the condition conversion list for skills like "Contemplation of Purity." " ?

>

>

 

Conversion lists are fine, since that's how condi conversion works. But I do think its odd to say that alacrity wasn't being added to any other classes when it was specifically added to consume plasma.

[Menzo.2185]

You guys, from Anet, must RE-read ALL skills and ALL traits, from ALL professions, to balance and adjust the game once for all, from Core, HoT and PoF.

 

- Mesmer

Time Warp: Quickness n Slow at a cost 180sec CD????? WHY???

Chaos Armor: Random Boon n Condi. Why Randomly???

Veil: 2s Stealth at a cost of 72sec CD??? Oh... the Glamour trait 2sec resistance OMG!!!!

Signet of Humility: with 180sec CD, Why? All Necros elites are better. "Toss Elixir X" IS MUCK BETTER

Winds of Chaos: Very slow skill

 

- Engi

Net Shot: This skills is garbage. Why dont u introduce eletric damage to the skill?

Elite Mortar Kit: Another garbage skill. Who uses it?

better Heal Skill, something like Defiant Stance or Healing Signet or Mending or Litany of Wrath lol

 

- Guardian

Wave of Wrath: Why only 300 range?

True Strike: Very slow chain skill

 

- Warrior

Who play with off-handed Mace or off-handed sword? Really? Why? Garbage

Warhorn??? LMFAO

 

- Thief

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE NERF THIS TROLL CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shadow's Embrace, Unhindered Combatant, Bounding Dodger, Be Quick or Be Killed, Fire for Effect (share Might thief?????), Hidden Killer...

 

I can do this with all professions, skills and traits and I know that a bunch of kids and noobs will say "shenanigans", but I'm trying to help you guys from Anet to make this game better, not just ok.

 

But the most important thing for me is to GIVE MORE HP to all professions; at least 20% more.

Expel all cheaters and hackers from the WvW / PVP game forever. There's a sea of them, a ocean.

[Habitax.8124]

Alacrity as a boon should be stack-able in the same way as stability is stack-able. In this model, leave the duration pretty much the same as it currently is. Example: Mesmer Wells will grant one stack of Alacrity per pulse/tick while inside the aoe. This will reduce potential of being totally boon stripped of alacrity. Remember when stability did not have stacks and how cruddy that system was? I do. In short, ANET if you are making Alacrity a boon, I highly recommend it be stack-able.

[JETWING.2759]

> @"Vermillion.4061" said:

> > @"Haleydawn.3764" said:

> > What would Alacrity be *corrupted* to?

>

> Likely slow.

 

May be:

Quickness - Slow.

Alacrity - Chill.

Resistence - ??? (New Condition?)

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

> @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

> > @"Adriaen.7895" said:

> > What is the condition corresponding to the new alacrity boon?

>

> Chill.

 

But Chill is currently being used by Resistance. Will Resistance get another corresponding conversion?

 

On a side note. Will thief's initiative finally be affected by the alacrity boons? Or will they get something else? This is a small detail I found rather frustrating.

 

Chill, the Polar opposite does not affect Thief's weapon skills or initiative. But it does hurt the cooldowns for utility and steal. But added onto that they are still slowed by 66%.

 

Alacrity on the other hand, thief only gets half of the benefit from it. Utilities and steal/mark are sped up. But they get nothing else out of it while the other classes enjoys a healthy DPS boost in raids or PvP.

[Dibbelocher.2318]

> @"Robert Gee.9246" said:

> > @"Sephylon.4938" said:

> > Since alac is becoming a boon, will other classes gain access to the alacrity boon as well or will it still be chrono and rev that can give alac?

> We don't plan to add alacrity to other professions at this time.

>

> > @"TwilightSoul.9048" said:

> > I'm wondering about Quickness uptime for Chronomancer now since they replaced Quickness on Tides of Time with Alacrity

> I am guessing you are talking about uptime for a raid group and not personal quickness uptime? When we checked current raid builds we found that quickness uptime was already higher than 100%. Removing it from Tides of Time should still allow full uptime, though it may be a little more difficult to run without Time Warp now.

>

>

 

Removing quickness from Tides of Time is a huge mistake. This pretty much makes Time Warp mandatory for chrono builds and is a huge hit to CC in raids and fractals. It also ruins the flow of the rotation completely. I don't want to be rude, but what are you thinking? In actual raid scenarios quickness often doesn't go past 100% at all. Only on golem bosses like Mursaat Overseer. Quickness was very much balanced on Chronomancer. And since ToT is such a huge source of quickness this will simply be disastrous for chronomancers.

 

So please reconsider this...

[Knox.8962]

> @"Dibbelocher.2318" said:

> > @"Robert Gee.9246" said:

> > > @"Sephylon.4938" said:

> > > Since alac is becoming a boon, will other classes gain access to the alacrity boon as well or will it still be chrono and rev that can give alac?

> > We don't plan to add alacrity to other professions at this time.

> >

> > > @"TwilightSoul.9048" said:

> > > I'm wondering about Quickness uptime for Chronomancer now since they replaced Quickness on Tides of Time with Alacrity

> > I am guessing you are talking about uptime for a raid group and not personal quickness uptime? When we checked current raid builds we found that quickness uptime was already higher than 100%. Removing it from Tides of Time should still allow full uptime, though it may be a little more difficult to run without Time Warp now.

> >

> >

>

> Removing quickness from Tides of Time is a huge mistake. This pretty much makes Time Warp mandatory for chrono builds and is a huge hit to CC in raids and fractals. It also ruins the flow of the rotation completely. I don't want to be rude, but what are you thinking? In actual raid scenarios quickness often doesn't go past 100% at all. Only on golem bosses like Mursaat Overseer. Quickness was very much balanced on Chronomancer. And since ToT is such a huge source of quickness this will simply be disastrous for chronomancers.

>

> So please reconsider this...

 

Except none of the things you are saying here are backed up by any data. The quickness uptime as measured in real fights is higher than the alacrity uptime on basically every boss out there.

 

The total available alacrity uptime in a standard chrono rotation is right around 105% coverage today compared to 145% available quickness coverage (not counting timewarp or spillover from a 2nd mesmer's Tides of Time).

[Yasi.9065]

Heres an explanation for your "real fight" problem:

Signet of Inspiration radius: 600 (around chrono)

Shield illusion alacrity radius: 240 (mid of boss about)

 

Nearly 3x the range makes it way easier to spread quickness, than getting people to stay in range of avengers.

 

And heres another thing. While most chronos can play a halfway decent rotation, at the same time most of those chrono do not have a clue where their alacrity is really coming from. If you play a decent rotation but dont use shield illusions, you get what... 30% alacrity? And you get 100% quickness.

Now, I always thought "it cant be THAT difficult to keep your shield phantasms up", but apparently... it can be. After all, Im seeing a lot of chronos having only 1 shield illusion up during most of the fights. Without shield illusions, your alacrity wont reach 100%. Doesnt have anything to do with Tides of Time, or a "surplus" of quickness. Its just that concept of keeping up 2 shield illusions for most of the fight seems to be impossible for the majority of chrono players.

 

And which kinda makes me happy they change that. Lets hope its for the better :)

[Knox.8962]

Current state alacrity uptime has virtually 0 cushion. Any missed phantasm AoEs or wells results in lost uptime. Quickness is so far over the top for overcapping that you lose tons of your quickness to the stack cap and STILL keep people close to 100%.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Knox.8962" said:

> Current state alacrity uptime has virtually 0 cushion. Any missed phantasm AoEs or wells results in lost uptime. Quickness is so far over the top for overcapping that you lose tons of your quickness to the stack cap and STILL keep people close to 100%.

And yet 100% quickness is something i almost never see. It may work like that in theory, and in the top % groups, but the reality for average ones is way different. The change is going to cause a significant uptime quickness drop in a huge majority of groups.

 

 

[Knox.8962]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Knox.8962" said:

> > Current state alacrity uptime has virtually 0 cushion. Any missed phantasm AoEs or wells results in lost uptime. Quickness is so far over the top for overcapping that you lose tons of your quickness to the stack cap and STILL keep people close to 100%.

> And yet 100% quickness is something i almost never see. It may work like that in theory, and in the top % groups, but the reality for average ones is way different. The change is going to cause a significant uptime quickness drop in a huge majority of groups.

>

>

 

The data doesn't back up your claim.

 

These numbers are for the 50th percentile of groups per GW2raidar. That essentially makes these representative of the average.

 

Wing 1

* VG - Q:66.4%, A:50.8%, (Q>A):15.5%

* Gors - Q:82.1%, A:60.4%, (Q>A):21.7%

* Sab - Q:81.2%, A:68.9%, (Q>A):12.2%

* W1 Avg - Q:76.5%, A:60.%, (Q>A):16.5%

 

 

Wing 2

* Sloth - Q:72.9%, A:59.4%, (Q>A):13.6%

* Mat - Q:66.3%, A:55.3%, (Q>A):11.%

* W2 Avg - Q:69.6%, A:57.4%, (Q>A):12.3%

 

 

Wing 3

* KC - Q:54.8%, A:45.4%, (Q>A):9.4%

* Xera p1 - Q:85.5%, A:76.5%, (Q>A):9.0%

* W3 Avg - Q:70.1%, A:61.%, (Q>A):9.2%

 

 

Wing 4

* Cairn - Q:64.9%, A:51.%, (Q>A):13.9%

* MO - Q:90.3%, A:73.2%, (Q>A):17.1%

* Sam - Q:69.1%, A:55.5%, (Q>A):13.6%

* Deimos - Q:63.3%, A:39.4%, (Q>A):23.9%

* W4 Avg - Q:71.9%, A:54.8%, (Q>A):17.1%

 

 

Wing 5

* SH - Q:79.%, A:68.3%, (Q>A):10.7%

* Dhuum Boss - Q:67.9%, A:46.7%, (Q>A):21.2%

* W5 Avg - Q:73.5%, A:57.5%, (Q>A):16.%

 

 

Overall

* Overall - Q:72.6%, A:57.8%, (Q>A):14.8%

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Knox.8962" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Knox.8962" said:

> > > Current state alacrity uptime has virtually 0 cushion. Any missed phantasm AoEs or wells results in lost uptime. Quickness is so far over the top for overcapping that you lose tons of your quickness to the stack cap and STILL keep people close to 100%.

> > And yet 100% quickness is something i almost never see. It may work like that in theory, and in the top % groups, but the reality for average ones is way different. The change is going to cause a significant uptime quickness drop in a huge majority of groups.

> >

> >

>

> The data doesn't back up your claim.

>

> These numbers are for the 50th percentile of groups per GW2raidar. That essentially makes these representative of the average.

>

> Wing 1

> * VG - Q:66.4%, A:50.8%, (Q>A):15.5%

> * Gors - Q:82.1%, A:60.4%, (Q>A):21.7%

> * Sab - Q:81.2%, A:68.9%, (Q>A):12.2%

> * W1 Avg - Q:76.5%, A:60.%, (Q>A):16.5%

>

>

> Wing 2

> * Sloth - Q:72.9%, A:59.4%, (Q>A):13.6%

> * Mat - Q:66.3%, A:55.3%, (Q>A):11.%

> * W2 Avg - Q:69.6%, A:57.4%, (Q>A):12.3%

>

>

> Wing 3

> * KC - Q:54.8%, A:45.4%, (Q>A):9.4%

> * Xera p1 - Q:85.5%, A:76.5%, (Q>A):9.0%

> * W3 Avg - Q:70.1%, A:61.%, (Q>A):9.2%

>

>

> Wing 4

> * Cairn - Q:64.9%, A:51.%, (Q>A):13.9%

> * MO - Q:90.3%, A:73.2%, (Q>A):17.1%

> * Sam - Q:69.1%, A:55.5%, (Q>A):13.6%

> * Deimos - Q:63.3%, A:39.4%, (Q>A):23.9%

> * W4 Avg - Q:71.9%, A:54.8%, (Q>A):17.1%

>

>

> Wing 5

> * SH - Q:79.%, A:68.3%, (Q>A):10.7%

> * Dhuum Boss - Q:67.9%, A:46.7%, (Q>A):21.2%

> * W5 Avg - Q:73.5%, A:57.5%, (Q>A):16.%

>

>

> Overall

> * Overall - Q:72.6%, A:57.8%, (Q>A):14.8%

 

Notice, that nowhere in that data (Well, except for MO, which is the closest you can get to training golem in actual raids) quickness uptime is even close to 100% . Let's forget about overcapping.

[misterman.1530]

> @"Drecien.4508" said:

> Scourges welcome this change. We love to convert more boons. nom nom nom

 

How do you like this change now with the recent patch which diluted a necro's ability to convert boons. Good old Anet. I came back to this game after months away. I can't believe I fell for it. Am such an idiot. Anet...do you have anyone there playing a Necro in PVE? Anyone at all?

[Luna Ataegina.3289]

I'm just trying to figure out if it's still worth figuring out how to play my chrono or dump it. It always seemed weak in pve to me anyway.

[JETWING.2759]

Lasts changes stealth and superspeed into boons to balance the condi/boon table.

 

Then:

 

Torment <-> Supespeed.

Taunt <-> Stealth.

 

Full balance ;)