What are the benefits of agility?

The in-game description of agility states that it increases the time it takes to perform certain movements, and searching around online it seems that it might increase invulnerability frames as well. I'm having trouble finding consistent information on exactly what actions agility affects, and how much time it reduces those actions by. I'm hesitant to start investing points into adaptability until I have a better idea how much of a benefit I'll gain from agility.

What actions does agility affect, and how much of an impact does it have on these actions?

Solution 1:

While nobody seems to have an authoritative answer yet, here's my current understanding, based on what others in the Souls community have managed to suss out:

• Agility seems to increase the speed of your roll slightly. It's also hypothesized to lengthen your roll's invincibility frames, but this can proven extremely difficult to confirm/disprove (even EpicNameBro, the author of the official strategy guide, was apparently unable to get a straight answer out of From Software on that topic). It theoretically also increases the speed of other actions such as how long it takes to drink from your Estus Flask. We know that it most likely doesn't affect spell casting speed or weapon attack speed. Additionally, this side-by-side comparison video (85 Agility vs. 95 Agility) seems to show essentially no noticeable effect on shield-readying speed.

• You get maximum Agility returns from Adaptability up until ~38 ADP. This breakpoint may change slightly depending on your Attunement stat, which also has a very minor effect on your Agility stat.

My personal (educated) conjecture is that Agility is no doubt useful on paper, at least based on what we think it currently does. Even in that case, if you're really good about timing your rolls perfectly, it's possible that you may not particularly need the lengthened invincibility window. The various other effects may or may not be useful to your character, depending on your build and playstyle. For example, a character that focuses on staying at maximum range may not always need the quicker Estus Flasks or roll speed, but heavy melee characters might want all the help they can get in those regards.

In any case, if you're planning on doing a lot of PvP or you just want to be a little bit quicker overall, I'd personally suggest spending a few points into bumping up your Agility a bit (most typically through Adaptability). However, if you're getting along in the game just fine as it is, then you may not need to worry about it.

Solution 2:

From what I've been reading, agility causes you to recover from actions faster, no animations get changed. So that you are able to act sooner after drinking, and are able to respond quicker after rolling. You also apparently block faster, tho the animation doesn't change, just the timing of when the game considers you to be blocking. Some people report drastic changes by increasing adaptability, others see no difference at all. If it is recovery times and no animations, it would be hard to show the difference in a video, and depending on play styles some people may never miss the stat. So its still really up in the air right now, need more sciencing.