Softcaps discussion

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(02-08-2012 12:23 AM)RuQu Wrote:  

(02-07-2012 10:48 PM)LagunaD Wrote:  Although I'm not familiar with Commando healing mechanics, I think I understand what your explanation. But I still don't see how more Alacrity can ever reduce your HPS, for the reasons given previously. The worst effect that resource constraints should ever have is making Alacrity HPS-neutral.
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Thus, even in the worst case where you are resource-bound with 0 Alacrity, your HPS increases linearly with Alacrity, but the slope is determined by your filler, not your good stuff.

Maybe that is the point you are trying to make, but showing a decrease in HPS with Alacrity in your graphs suggests to me that the problem hasn't been formulated properly.

Your reasoning is perfectly sound in isolation, but breaks down during actual rotations.

We can burst heal for 10 seconds every time we cast Supercharge Cells (SCC). This removes the cooldown on Adv Probe (AP), which means we can follow it with a cheap Med Probe (MP). It also provides a 10% healing buff.

Now, assuming there there are always injured people out there in need of healing, you will cast AP/MP combos as long as you can inside that 10s window, and you will not waste any of those 10s on casting the free weak heal. Since the time of SCC is fixed, but the amount you can spend in it is not, increased alacrity can have you burst your way into a lower regen zone than a lower alacrity would have put you at. You then have to recover after the fact. While we cast Hammer Shot during regen, it actually doesn't return any Ammo, it is simply free so its EC is -1*regen. Casting HS is the same as standing around, but you can do some light healing while doing it.

In fact, this appears to be exactly what happens in the 25% case. An extra AP slips into the SCC cooldown, followed by an extra 1 Ammo MP, and this extra expenditure of 3 Ammo drops you into lower regen, thus slowing the rotation as a whole.

I think there's a mistake in reasoning here (in particular, a false premise). You say that you wouldn't waste any of the buff casting the free heal, but it's not a 'waste' if it actually increases your overall healing by keeping your regen high. Why is it a requirement to recover after the fact instead of simply keeping your regen up despite the buff, if you get better healing out of it?

The overall point is that there should be no reason why you cannot execute the same rotation when you have more alacrity than before, and if you execute the rotation exactly (by simply delaying where the new amount of alacrity reduces cast times) you should get the exactly the same amount of healing. E.g., in your 25% example, why can't you recover the original amount of healing (or better) by not using that extra AP? What prevents you from using the original rotation?