Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,
Since intuition is not all that accurate for all these stacked cool down reductions, I’ve prepared a spreadsheet.

UPDATED 18th june based on the preview patch notes
13 second chaos storm/armour still appears to be intact!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1itgF1ChrrPzlisHzm22qfS2S4CMO709X5fSJEaQveZs/pubhtml

*Note: currently assumes cooldown time with alacrity is reduced by 40%.
EDIT: Fixed incorrect torch trait numbers

EDIT2: Updated based on the latest information – old version is here if you’re curious:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rPudqIXBt_uTWpuN7_q1GAJdUAkBSqwm6T7ZerXVDuQ/pubhtml

Hey this is neat!
Dumb person question…
Does the Alacrity column assume 100% Alacrity up-time?

Thanks a lot for working on this. May I add it to the guide when the expansion hits?

First, yes, it assumes 100% alacrity uptime – with current numbers that looks plausible either with rapid shatters or 3 shield phantasms. Good question though

As for adding it to the guide, that would be great! I’ll try to keep it updated whenever we get new information.

Definitely handy to know, thanks Toe!
A 10s cooldown on Chaos Storm has me jittery with excitement, even though practically I am guessing 100% uptime on both Alacrity and Chaos Armor will be a theorical state more than a realistic one.

That said, I’m always considering WvW builds. Finding a way to maximize Alacrity through shatters (regardless of whether they land or not) and using that to power heavily cooldowns Chaos Storms and Wells is pretty appealing to me. :-) Great work!

I think I read somewhere that alacrity was a +66% CD reduction, meaning 5/3.

Nice work.

Since I’m extra lazy today: Any chance anyone could add the numerical cooldown with 100% Alacrity only without CD traits?

arkealia.2713:

I think I read somewhere that alacrity was a +66% CD reduction, meaning 5/3.

Yes, 66% is the number being used a lot! But that seems most likely to be a cooldown rate increase, meaning cooldown time is 3/5 of normal, or -40%

For example imagine a 100% cooldown speed change – does that mean twice as fast, or zero second cooldowns? I’d say it means twice as fast, or 50% cooldown time.

Xaylin.1860:

Nice work.

Since I’m extra lazy today: Any chance anyone could add the numerical cooldown with 100% Alacrity only without CD traits?

Now done
I’ll also add the other weapons soon! I’m not really sure what to do with pistol though… it’s less measured in seconds, more in interrupts.

Toeofdoom.6152:

Now done
I’ll also add the other weapons soon! I’m not really sure what to do with pistol though… it’s less measured in seconds, more in interrupts.

Thanks.

I don’t think it’s worth to go through the trouble with DD. It’s basically 100%, 50%, 0% cooldown reduction depending on the interrupts.

Since I didn’t really think about it so far… looking at the numbers: A 50% Alacrity uptime equals a 20% cooldown reduction from weapon traits (the only remaining ones being Sword and Focus). Not sure what to make from that comparison yet. But maybe changing the weapon traits ultimatively aims at offering alternatives to Alacrity depending on your skill level.

CD on weapon swap is still in effect though, so this is not nearly as OP as it may seem.

Thanks a lot for creating this! Love to see the potential behind alacrity via numbers. Could you please do alacrity’s effect on shatter skills? After 15% recharge baselined and with or without traiting into illusion? This could help enormously with deciding illusion and chronomancer (or dueling?) for shatter mesmer, especially 3 illusions + IP shatter gives 4s alacrity for chronomancy line (roughly 30% uptime during Mind Wrack CD)

So the cooldown of mind wrack when traited into illusions and under full alacrity will be about 6.3 seconds.

Note that since 3 clones + IP would give 4 seconds of alacrity, you can boost that to 5.2 seconds from the minor trait.

This is very close to 100% uptime assuming you’re able to do a 4 clone wrack every time it’s off cooldown. If you work in various other sources of alacrity such as the phantasm and other shatters, in a realistic combat situation 80%ish uptime of alacrity seems doable.

So for any given skill, 80% alacrity uptime translates into a 32% recharge reduction, applied after any static cooldown reductions (like illusions does to shatters, or the focus trait does for focus skills).

Hmmm, my calculations were 7.6-7.8 seconds for a mind wrack. I think illusions only reduces by 15% now, not 30%, is that the difference? I’ll add them once I get home, see if we can agree by then

100% uptime seems like a useful metric – for example you should be able to keep it up during a burst… Interested to see what builds people will come up with!

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys , with that in mind personally I can sacrifice illusion for chronomancer for power shatter. Probably won’t sacrifice dueling for illusion + chronomancer because with that CD it sounds like illusion will limit burst frequency more than shatter CD.

If I remember properly, every profession’s special skill CD will automatically reduce by 15% and the other 15% CD reduction comes from traiting the fifth line (illusions for us).

Toeofdoom.6152:

Hmmm, my calculations were 7.6-7.8 seconds for a mind wrack. I think illusions only reduces by 15% now, not 30%, is that the difference? I’ll add them once I get home, see if we can agree by then

100% uptime seems like a useful metric – for example you should be able to keep it up during a burst… Interested to see what builds people will come up with!

15% is baseline, illusions reduces by an additional 15%.

Well… I’ll go with that or similar for now, but at least ele differs from that plan and I can’t find where it was stated. Looking closer the AMA tooltip is most consistent with a 10% baseline improvement, but being alpha could be inaccurate.

Toeofdoom.6152:

Well… I’ll go with that or similar for now, but at least ele differs from that plan and I can’t find where it was stated. Looking closer the AMA tooltip is most consistent with a 10% baseline improvement, but being alpha could be inaccurate.

I can guarantee you, I’m correct. Just check literally any of the documentation that was released with the notes.

If you need to know if it is 40% or 66%, just look at the way chill works and reverse it.

Yeah, with the 40%/66% I’m fairly confident.

As for shatter traits, they are now added – I missed the half base/half trait line and thought the baseline bit was an arbitrary buff because the very next line they give ele 30% baseline and 15% traited! Sorry about that

So what I’ve added is a “best case” and “worst case”: Worst case actually exactly matches what you get traited in game right now. This is NOT a straight 30% reduction, which would make Distortion 42 seconds. In reality, you get 46.25, which is 60/1.3 – because the trait line is a cooldown rate increase.

“Best case” is assuming they did a similar thing to the ele attunement buff and cut 20% off the base cooldowns – which matches this image showing a 12 second mind wrack cooldown: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-master-of-fragmentation.jpg

Fay.2357:

This is very close to 100% uptime assuming you’re able to do a 4 clone wrack every time it’s off cooldown. If you work in various other sources of alacrity such as the phantasm and other shatters, in a realistic combat situation 80%ish uptime of alacrity seems doable.

So for any given skill, 80% alacrity uptime translates into a 32% recharge reduction, applied after any static cooldown reductions (like illusions does to shatters, or the focus trait does for focus skills).

That’s very optimistic, don’t you think? I mean… in a 1vs1 maybe. But in any other situations our Illusions are just too likely to die to maintain such a frequent shatter frequency at full efficiency.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited and I think it’s quite cool. But I’m not sold on its efficieny yet. There are just too many ways to diminish our Alacrity sources.

Hi everyone, just letting you know I’ve updated this with the preview patch notes. The updated sheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1itgF1ChrrPzlisHzm22qfS2S4CMO709X5fSJEaQveZs/pubhtml

The only changes I found are related to greatsword and scepter which now have the standard 20% reduction. That said, IC + 20% traits + alacrity should stack very well indeed – just take a look at the scepter cooldowns.

I’ve also added a mesmer colour scheme to indicate just how excellent the cooldown reductions are. Purple ones are the best (obviously). Let me know what you think!

Updated with chaotic dampening nerf – it’s still a very good trait. I always considered it OP so not that surprised

I am quite curious about how well alacrity will perform in dungeon. Currently, the meta is using AA for most professions (sounds fun right?), will alacrity give any buff at all? Will it allow people to use other weapons (like ranger using GS or longbow instead of sword because maul/rapid fire has shorter cooldown)?