What is the point having precast gear?

[radar]

This has bugged me for quite a while.

There is a ton of gear in the game that is blatantly made to be equipped before you cast a spell, and then gear that is made to be equipped as the spell is being cast for max potency of that spell.

However the game macros have a cap of 1 second and so usually you can't take advantage of this gear well.

This is gear that is effectively made for cheaters, there really needs to be some fix made so players can actually use more complicated precast gear without having to resort to cheating.

[Rinuko]

Just give us fast cast on all gear and problem solved? /s

[Zenion]

You could hypothetically use all that precast gear by making three macros to set all those slots with /equip, then cast the spell, and then use /equipset for your midcast gear, but... yeah, it's cumbersome. I guess the intended approach is to just always wear your precast gear rather than only wear it just before you cast a spell?

This is one of those cases where things would work a lot better if we could have /equipset without the 1 second lockout, but apparently that's not possible. 20 line macros would be good enough, but that would conflict with one of those PS2 limitations aspects of design so... not likely to get that either.

[Gwydion]

You could hypothetically use all that precast gear by making three macros to set all those slots with /equip, then cast the spell, and then use /equipset for your midcast gear, but... yeah, it's cumbersome. I guess the intended approach is to just always wear your precast gear rather than only wear it just before you cast a spell?

This is one of those cases where things would work a lot better if we could have /equipset without the 1 second lockout, but apparently that's not possible. 20 line macros would be good enough, but that would conflict with one of those PS2 limitations aspects of design so... not likely to get that either.

All things considered, what is the way that players are expected to use both sets? I mean, what does a vanilla macro look like with the appropriate equip sets in precast and midcast/potency of a spell?

[Dragoy]

I'd probably guess that the intention for such sets is to... pick one that they feel is most appropriate for what they are doing... ignoring the fact that a lot of people actually are picking both (surely they are aware of it, right?).

Could be wrong, of course!

[Zenion]

All things considered, what is the way that players are expected to use both sets? I mean, what does a vanilla macro look like with the appropriate equip sets in precast and midcast/potency of a spell?

In the Abyssea days, before /equipset was a thing and when summoner was starting to get actual useful gear (finally), my blood pacts would look something like ctrl+5 ctrl+6 ctrl+7: blood pact delay. ctrl+8: blood pact. alt+1 alt+2 alt+3: blood pact potency. alt+6 alt+7 alt+8: idle set. I imagine that's basically how your vanilla macro would look like, only now midcast could be an equipset on the actual spell macro, and idle set could be a single macro of its own since you can afford a second's delay in swapping back to it.

So basically: Three macros to put on your midcast, one for the appropriate spell, one for getting dressed again afterward.

[radar]

An easier way to fix this long running problem (if they can't fix the macro system) would be to add a quest and npc, that allows you to use Job Points after you get master towards capping fast cast. Similar to job merits.

This would allow all (including most JP players) to use fast cast and potency gear, the current system gives too much of an advantage to certain players.

Then everyone can just macro potency gear for casts.

[Rinuko]

I like that idea, radar.