Improved Alacrity Question

[Yoci.2481]

I have a question about the Chronomancer trait Improved Alacrity. Maybe I don't really understand the description, but if I read it literally it makes alacrity worse?

 

Quote

Alacrity applied to you is stronger but has a reduced duration.

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/a4/Radius.png/20px-Radius.png Recharge Speed: 50%

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/8/8b/Duration.png/20px-Duration.png Duration Decreased: 33%

 

So normal alacrity increases your recharge speed by 25%. That means 1 second of alacrity you get recharges your abilities by 1.25 seconds. Now of you take Improved Alacrity 1 second of alacrity you get will get reduced to about 0.67 seconds, but the recharge rate is increased to 50%.

 

1 * 0.67 * 1.5 = 1.005 seconds.

 

So 1 second of alacrity you get will result in 1.005 seconds of skill recharge? This is worse than plain alacrity? The only time this would be better is if you have permanent alacrity?

[Jijimuge.4675]

The way normal alacrity works is that, for every second with alacrity, skills recharge by 1.25 seconds whereas, with improved alacrity, skills recharge by 1.5 seconds .

 

I think it's easier to look at some examples.

 

You apply 6 seconds alacrity.  This means that, over the duration of those 6 seconds, your skills will recharge by 7.5 seconds (=6 x 1.25)

 

In the normal case, the 6 seconds of alacrity would gain you 1.5 seconds of recharge (=7.5 - 6)

 

If you had Improved Alacrity, you'd only gain ~4 (=6 x .67) seconds of alacrity, but over that period the alacrity would recharge your skills by 6 seconds (=4 x 1.5)

 

In the Improved Alacrity case you'd have gained 2 seconds of recharge for the same boon application as opposed to 1.5 without Improved Alacrity.

 

So even in the base case, Improved Alacrity does provide a benefit to the chronomancer.  Note that it will have no effect on the boons you give to others.

 

However, the -33% is applied to you as a change to boon duration and is additive with boon duration from concentration etc, so the effect of this reduction becomes relatively less significant as you gain in boon duration.

 

To revisit the case above, let's say that the chrono has an extra 100% boon duration (so 200% total) and applies the same 6 second alacrity.

 

If they had normal alacrity, their alacrity would last for 6 x 2 seconds = 12 seconds, which translates to a recharge saving of 3 seconds.

 

With improved alacrity, the alacrity would last for 167% of the normal duration (=100% + 100% - 33%) which ~=10 seconds.  With improved alacrity that would translate to a recharge saving of 5 seconds.

[Yoci.2481]

Thank you, I think I understand now.

[Stavros.8249]

Also if u use improve alacrity in a damage build, the reduced duration doesn't concern you, cause you get extra alacrity for every clone u shatter. 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Btw, simple trick for calculating alacrity:

Add the amount of alacrity (like 25% extra recharge speed) to base and make it a fraction like so:
1+ 25% = 1.25 = 5/4.

Then reverse it and make it a percentage:
4/5 = 80%.

This is how long the skill will take to recharge compared to original, provided alacrity is up whole time. Here it's 80%, so 20% cooldown reduction. For improved alacrity it'll be 33% recharge reduction.
 

Edited August 22, 2021 by ZeftheWicked.3076