Reducing Standard Cast Times (not recast time) to 2s

[YusiKha]

More homogenization for healers! That'll certainly increase the player base of this role.

Are you really that attached to 2.5/2.5? If you like animation lock you may as well go all the way to 2.8 like Fire IV with a potency change to make up for it (335 for Glare)

[Verlyn]

I would be down for this. It would make pretty much all the mage jobs feel better, nevermind just the healers.

[Kuwago]

I've honestly been spoiled with the 1.5 cast time for Malefic that I can barely function correctly with my rotations on SCH and WHM. I feel that this is a good change for every healers since that would mean more weaving for oGCD heals and Shields

[LariaKirin]

Please don't. For many reasons:

Finding/creating weaving opportunities is an important part of SCH/WHM gameplay.
It's something that keeps them from being significantly ahead of AST in dps.
It's something that makes AST unique. Not just because it's different, but because AST can enable their cohealer to DPS more than they otherwise could, by being able to handle some of the healing with no loss.

[Shurrikhan]

Please don't. For many reasons:

Finding/creating weaving opportunities is an important part of SCH/WHM gameplay.
It's something that keeps them from being significantly ahead of AST in dps.
It's something that makes AST unique. Not just because it's different, but because AST can enable their cohealer to DPS more than they otherwise could, by being able to handle some of the healing with no loss.

Let's also consider the following, however.

1. Most animation locks use a standard .635 seconds' (or technically .633-repeating, but this simplifies to .635 in frame-analysis) duration. (Last I checked, Mudras use .5 seconds into another mudra, but .635 seconds into Ninjutsu. Jump uses an animation lock of just over a second in its latest implementation, iirc, while High Jump uses the standard lock if and only if the player's position does not move over the cast.)
2. Cast times allow for cast progress during the animation times/locks of previous casts.
3. The latest Broil spell and Glare, by all accounts here (I have yet to test them for myself since I don't have the ease of frame analysis I had before), instead use an animation lock of just over .9 seconds, costing over a quarter-second more of uptime if followed by an OGCD than other casts.
4. For these spells, therefore, to have only the same opportunity cost when followed by an oGCD as most other spells, they'd need to complete their casts a bit over a quarter second sooner, e.g. via a base cast time of 2.2 instead of 2.5.

The OP has never suggested a true space for a full weave, only this measure of compensation to balance those particular long-animation spells' opportunity costs.

Which, I'd like. No more than that, ofc, but that much seems reasonable to me. I worry about the false impressions it will leave on players less informed of this game's more esoteric bits, but that seems reasonable. Better than that, though, I'd just like to see the animation lock reduced to the standard value, as to leave no hidden increased penalty nor trick players into thinking they have a reduced single-weave penalty.

[LariaKirin]

The OP has never suggested a true space for a full weave, only this measure of compensation to balance those particular long-animation spells' opportunity costs.

Which, I'd like. No more than that, ofc, but that much seems reasonable to me. I worry about the false impressions it will leave on players less informed of this game's more esoteric bits, but that seems reasonable. Better than that, though, I'd just like to see the animation lock reduced to the standard value, as to leave no hidden increased penalty nor trick players into thinking they have a reduced single-weave penalty.

Reply was directed at the poster above who was talking about weaving. My bad for not quoting.

As for reducing the cast time below the Recast, I can see the benefits. It will remove the caster tax, it will help with higher latency and it will make it easier to slidecast around.

But this will have effects on balancing. By removing the caster tax, you can expect a dps increase on Broil/Glare of up to 4% (approximately) for SCH/WHM, depending on how many Broil/Glare you cast. Possibly more because this will also mitigate the effects of latency on the caster tax.

In addition, clipping is not binary, it matters how much you clip. If I clip with a 2.5s cast time, I eat 0.7s into the next GCD. If I clip with a 2.2s cast time, I eat 0.4s into the next GCD. Therefore, this reduces the cost of clipping across the board. It may not be a full weave, but it has many implications.

As an example, clipping Broil will cost you:
2.5s cast: approx. 82 potency loss.
2.2s cast: approx. 49 potency loss.
2.0s cast: approx. 26 potency loss.

In both of these cases, SCH will prefer to clip Broil for anything other than a double weave.
In the extreme case of 2.0s, the potency loss is so small that you'll prefer to clip two consecutive Broils rather than create a double weaving window with Ruin II.

With reduced cast time comes greater mobility, which will have its own impact on DPS.

A change like this will put SCH and WHM significantly further ahead of AST. You need to nerf Broil and Glare for a change like this to work.

[YusiKha]

snip

I only suggested 2.0s because Red Mage already has a 2.0s cast for all of their short spells (likely so that lag won’t mess up dualcast).
I stated 2.0 because it’s a precedent in the game already, not because of balance.
Of course with dualcast and the long oGCD animation lock RDM has different clipping rules to healers.

2.4 would be the minimum actually required but because of natural spellspeed and gearing, 2.3 would be the best value.