Imperial Agent & Smuggler - Simple Questions and Answers

[Kaedis]

I'm not super well versed on Sniper effects or IAs in general, but I've answered the ones I know the answers to:

Quote:Global Cooldown (GCD) - Is the GCD 1.5s or 1s? Does it start at the beginning of an activated or chaneled ability or at the end? Do some abilities not trigger it?

1.5 seconds, excluding certain abilities that reduce the GCD. Starts at the beginning of a cast/channel.

Quote:Alacrity - What does this impact? GCD? Activation time (like on Snipe/Ambush)? Channeling length (like on Series of Shots/Cull)? Other?

Alacrity decreases the activation and channel (conflicting reports on the latter here) time of any ability with one, but does not reduce the GCD at all. All casts at or under 1.5 seconds already, as well all instant attacks, gain no benefit from Alacrity. The formula, as far as we can tell thus far, is NewCastTime = OldCastTime / (1 + Alacrity%)

Quote:Accuracy - I imagine this impacts ranged attacks, but does it impact melee and/or magic attacks in any way?

Yes, and the same stat affects each. However, physical and special (ie. force/tech) attacks have different base miss chances. Once you've reduced your miss chance to 0, Accuracy starts affecting your chance to be dodged/parried for melee or deflected/resisted for ranged.

Quote:So do some tick instantly and others only after a delay? Then there's Cull which ticks every second, but not for a set number of ticks, so how would alacrity impact that?

Yes, some tick instantly, while others have a delay. Also, as far as I know, Alacrity has no effect on DoT tick intervals.

Quote:Sprint works when not "in combat". What constitutes "in combat"? Will DoTs ticking or debuffs you've put on a target keep you in combat? If you're running away from someone trying to attack you but they aren't able to reach you, will you be able to hit Sprint at some point to get some distance?

Sprint actually automatically handles that. You have to cast it once, right after you resurrect each time (or right after getting it for the first time), but after that it automatically disables on entering combat and automatically reactivates out of combat.

DoT ticks do not keep you in combat or put you in combat, regardless of whether they are on you or your target. Any hostile action you take or taken against you will place you in combat, as will aggroing a hostile NPC, either by attacking it or by getting to near. You will also be placed in combat and remain in combat if your companion engages or is engaged by a target.

Leaving combat has different rules depending on the type of combat. In PvE combat (any combat against an NPC), you will be placed in combat on initial aggro and will not leave combat (excluding certain odd phase changes and such) until all hostile mobs engaged in that combat session are defeat, or you are defeats. The one except to this is that mobs will "leash" back to their starting area if you pull them far enough away from it without committing any hostile action against them. They will enter Evade mode, becoming immune to all attacks and ignoring all targets while they run back to their initial aggro spot. As soon as they do this, you will drop combat.

In PvP, you will drop combat after a certain period of time (I believe 10 seconds) after the last hostile action you took or received or the last helpful action you took against a target already in PvP combat.

Taking a helpful action against a friendly target in combat (PvE or PvP) will also place you in combat, subject to the normal terms of dropping combat. Receiving a helpful action from a target in combat will not place you in combat, however.

You can tell if you're in combat or not by the icon above the center of your action bars. If it's absent, no enemies are around. If it's a yellow eye, you are out of combat, but enemies are near (perhaps only PvE enemies, or maybe it's simply a marker of zone type). If it's a red blaster pistol, you're in combat.

Quote:Does Distraction prevent all abilities for 4s or just the one they were trying to use when you hit your target with it?

Only the ability they were trying to use, so choose carefully which you interrupt.

Quote:Lethal Dose in T4 Lethality says it affects "periodic effects". Would that include attacks like Series of Shots or Orbital Strikes?

I'm inclined to say no. It appears that according to the SWTOR engine, only effects normally considered DoTs (ie. you apply a debuff to the target, that doesn't require you to channel to maintain it, the deals damage at regular intervals). Neither Series of Shots or Orbital Strikes fits this definition. That talent may possess odd behavior, though, I've not empirically tested it's effects.

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Quote:This is incorrect. DoTs always tick on 0 and then incrementally from there as it stops others from tagging your target in the first 3 seconds. Therefore 15 sec DoTs are actually 12 (0,3,6,9,12).

This is incorrect. For example, the SI DoT Affliction (5 ticks, 15 seconds) first ticks at 3 seconds in, and last ticks at 15 seconds in. I'm willing to bet Corrosive Dart works similarly. Your design would be counter-intuitive (the last 3 seconds the DoT was on you don't do anything) unless they did a Rift-style system (a 15 second DoT would have 6 ticks, not five).