Mental Alacrity

[Nightbringer]

I was wondering, how casting speed works. It does reduce the time for which spell does 1 iteration of its stuff, yes? So, Aether Ray with +12% cast speed does +12% more damage? Or cast speed does the opposite and increases the time for which your spells need to do 1 iterationof their stuff?

[FlamingX21]

Casting speed as if ect. Ice spikes. You can litellary bullspam them when you get that speed very high, although about ray it's just takes time to start it, it doesn't really do that much damage and Mental Alacrity skill reduces it's cost, bascailly all magical stuff cost by like -20%, which is pretty huge and probably necesery for that.

I don't think really deep with that since I don't adore that ray much.

[Nightbringer]

So, it is just for initial cast? You mentioned at first as it would be a cooldown reduction. I'm still kinda confused about it.

[KG]

+12% cast speed is kind of like a x1.12 damage modifier if you don't have other sources of cast speed and the spell you're using doesn't have a cooldown. Aether Ray's cooldown is a special case and only applies when you stop holding the button/key to cast it - meaning you have to wait a moment to start casting it again. As long as you keep channeling it, cast speed increases AAR's damage.

The mana cost reduction effect of Mental Alacrity isn't really noticeable at first because of the cast speed boost - but it stacks additively with other sources of mana cost reduction so it can really be important when you get more. For an Aether Ray build, mana cost reduction blows any sort of mana regen bonus out of the water.

[Nightbringer]

Thank you for explaining it clearer. So it does synergizes with AAR as I thought.

[Matthew]

Yes. Quite effectively, too. Channeled spells tick for a certain number of times per second, and cast speed has a larger effect on it than regular spells. I forget the exact numbers off the top of my head, but 200% cast speed makes a spell like AAR tick around 8 or 9 times per second. On the flip side, you max out spamming a spell like Panetti's like half that.

[KG]

Originally posted by Matthew:

Yes. Quite effectively, too. Channeled spells tick for a certain number of times per second, and cast speed has a larger effect on it than regular spells. I forget the exact numbers off the top of my head, but 200% cast speed makes a spell like AAR tick around 8 or 9 times per second. On the flip side, you max out spamming a spell like Panetti's like half that.

I don't know about that. Spells I'm more familiar with (Forcewave for example) act just like AAR with respect to benefiting from cast speed all the way to the 200% cap. It often isn't as valuable to cap cast speed as before AoM, though, since there are more ways to increase base damage and that sort of thing now.

The mana cost associated with increasing AAR's cast speed to the cap is also heavier than pretty much any other spell since it is so expensive for the damage dealt.

[Matthew]

Could be. I don't have anything to test it easily right now, though it certainly could be just an issue with the way numbers are displayed on the character sheet. I did some minor searching and some results were also showing some discrepencies in the supposed 3.3 ticks per second and what is getting calculated.

I don't know what other ways are you referring to. Did AoM add items with a weapon damage % component then or something? Otherwise I'm not sure why you wouldn't cap speed on AAR. I mean, many of the AAR skill boosting items have some cast speed on it, so it isn't like you go out of the way to get it.

[Matthew]

The DPS formula for channeled skills is based on the same formula as most other spells in the game, which presents an error as it quantifies animation length. This is how it should work for most abilities, but channeled skills function differently due to their use of a "time between attacks" variable, which effectively negates the standard animation length factor. So we'll be addressing that in v1.0.6.0 so the correct DPS is displayed on the character sheet for channeled skills.

Quote from Zantai here http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69073&page=2

The thread itself is kind of garbage and devolved into some discussion about hardcore vs. casuals, but the quote does imply there is/was some difference in what is displayed in regards to channeling skills. How that actually affects damage, I have no idea :/

[KG]

There are items that grant skills % weapon damage, or just more flat base damage, or you could hop aboard the crit damage + crit chance train for fun multiplication, or you could just be getting that last 20 or 30% cast speed from several buff procs. I've seen similar things with melee builds - like insane Vitality ritualists that only have 150 or 160% attack speed but DGAF because they dual wield with 30k base weapon damage.

I'm not as familiar with current AAR setups because current AAR is relatively awful and I didn't even like it in vanilla GD. :/

Edit:
IIRC Matthew the TL;DR for that thread you quoted is that AAR displayed like twice the sheet DPS that it actually dealt.

[Matthew]

In my experience playing 4 different AAR builds over the years is cast speed being a non-issue to cap. It is easier to cap than attack speed, skill point investment into AAR builds are low so points into a passive like Mental Alacrity can be spared (plus the cost reduction), and as said many of the items which boost AAR already have cast speed on them.

But whatever, your point still stands in the end. AAR builds with too much speed early on just run out of mana quicker and feel even more clunkier to play than usual, so one ends up placing more emphasis on ways to increase damage other than speed anyway, though more due to mana management than dps efficiency.

[Nightbringer]

Originally posted by Matthew:

In my experience playing 4 different AAR builds over the years is cast speed being a non-issue to cap. It is easier to cap than attack speed, skill point investment into AAR builds are low so points into a passive like Mental Alacrity can be spared (plus the cost reduction), and as said many of the items which boost AAR already have cast speed on them.

But whatever, your point still stands in the end. AAR builds with too much speed early on just run out of mana quicker and feel even more clunkier to play than usual, so one ends up placing more emphasis on ways to increase damage other than speed anyway, though more due to mana management than dps efficiency.

Indeed. When I had rebuilt my hero, I put them into AAR. Before I barely used mana potions. Afterwards I was eating them like crazy all the time. Mana cost of this spell is immense.


Though, I want to ask you this. I would wish to avoid getting last upgrade for it. Is that upgrade necessary to invest in?

[Matthew]

You mean Disintegration?

Yeah, it is kind of important for min/max tweaking. Raising OA and getting critical hits is only worth it if your crit % damage is high, and most of that is going to come from Disintegration + Elemental Balance.

For most of the game you can probably avoid it if you want, since just base skill levels and cast speed will scale damage high enough. When it comes down to burning higher health ultimate enemies though, higher OA and crit damage will make a difference.

[Nightbringer]

QA stands for?

[KG]

OA is Offensive Ability.

[Draug]

Originally posted by Matthew:

Could be. I don't have anything to test it easily right now, though it certainly could be just an issue with the way numbers are displayed on the character sheet. I did some minor searching and some results were also showing some discrepencies in the supposed 3.3 ticks per second and what is getting calculated.

It's probably because the game doesn't treat it as "there will be 3.3 ticks per second" but rather that there will be a 300 ms delay between ticks. And that 300 ms delay can be found within the data files. Cast speed affects the delay as a function of "delay = 300 / cast speed"