Why are we advertized as fighter-mages when White Mages can out-do us?

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Originally Posted by cidbahamut

You don't have any experience using celerity to keep up a Haste cycle do you? All it does is make the cycle asymmetric and force you to keep burning the JA during every cycle at the same time. A quick magic JA isn't going to really do anything to ease the buff cycle situation. At best it'll be useful for throwing out a timely nuke or a raise.

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No I use Celerity for Refresh or larger casts, there's no reason to use it for haste.

But the difference between Celerity and Quick cast is shortened recast vs no recast. You're essentially pairing two casts of it together. Which isn't asymmetrical if you split it between 2 functions, depending if the recast on Quick cast is sort enough (about a minute max would be the only fair, but I'm hoping for 30 seconds.) In which case, dedicating Quick cast to that function wouldn't be bad. At least then it gets more mileage out of it than simply throwing out a quick nuke or raise.

You don't seem to understand what I'm getting at. Once the cycle is established you're tied to it and celerity/quick-magic isn't actually helping you. Sooner or later you'll find yourself with the JA down and waiting on a spell's recast timer so you aren't actually speeding up the distribution by eliminating the need to wait on the spell's recast timer unless you burn the JA on it every cycle, restricting other things you might be accomplishing with the JA. Cycles will be the same problem forever, and a quick-magic style JA doesn't resolve it. The only real resolution is to AoE them via Accession, but SE doesn't seem to want us doing that much. So yeah, Quick Magic is will not be our salvation from cycling single-target buffs.

No what you don't seem to get is that quick magic would reduce both the control burden and the casting time of these cycles, freeing up time for other tasks. In this case, you ARE speeding up distribution in direct relation to time taken to do the cycle.

Does it mean you'll get to stop cycling spells? Hell no. But if you haven't gotten used to the mechanic by now, feel free to quit the job over it.

There's only one way to truncate a cycle mechanic: AoE. What Quick magic does for us, is alleviate some of determent that cycle mechanic does for us, IE, it's all we do because we're stuck in casting time.

Think of it this way. If a good chunk of the spells we had to cycle took about to cast individually as an elemental barspell, would it really be that tedious? No, because then it becomes more of an afterthought to maintain in the background of other things you're doing, like meleeing, debuffing, nuking and curing.

As far as waiting on the spell timer with JA down? Split your buffs into pairs based on the JA timer and you're golden.

Only issue with this would be if the timer was 5 minutes, in which case it would pretty much be a useless skill. But it's a 1 minute timer, it will cut down the aggravation of cycling buff's quite nicely.

As far as 'other things you might accomplish with the JA' What? A double MB? Now you're just getting into situational arguments, and entirely dependent on what you're there to do. What you're arguing about that long endurance cycle buffing that gets horrendously tedious... when was the last time you were in anything that long? The duration of our buffs with the correct gear on others gets highly extended. So between casting them quickly and having them last longer, the old 05 argument of "OMG I HAVE TO CAST A SPELL OVER AGAIN!" doesn't have the steam it used to, and we've no idea what gear may further that in the future.

I mean for things like BC fights and events, when your nuking/curing matters, sure, save the JA. But otherwise, what else are you going to use it on consistently?

I just don't think it's the miracle fix you so desperately want to believe it is.

You go ahead and burn it on cycling to little effect. I'll be over here sneaking in instant Blizzard IVs so I don't get caught with my pants down when someone needs an emergency cure bomb.

I HIGHLY doubt the ability will have a recast of less then 3 mins.

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You go ahead and burn it on cycling to little effect. I'll be over here sneaking in instant Blizzard IVs so I don't get caught with my pants down when someone needs an emergency cure bomb.

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Really, the timing is beyond negligible. Your insta-nuking might have a better argument, except that when you're cycling a full regimen of buffs, you likely are not in the position to desire to nuke except maybe to blow MP before you vert.

Better to put the ability to a consistent use than to sit on it wasting your timer. Same could be said for convert, no?

Haste or Refresh will always last a set time. Seriously, using a Quick ability to save yourself 2-3 seconds is not the wisest of choices and a partial testament to the overall worthlessness of the idea in general. If it's down when the cycle renews, you'll wind up leaving someone without their buff for 10s or so, and that'll stutter to everyone later on the list. Barring abnormalities like Dispels or overwriting Slows, you don't want to mess up that rhythm.

Now, if it were 10-15s of mini-chainspell, then it might hold some greater utility, but as a one-shot ability, it's rather meh and at best a nuking supplement.

In another thread, I said that I would vote 100% toward making our buffs self-target only and giving Scholar and White Mage the party-friendly versions. That way Red Mage can focus on using its buffs on itself, and have greater strength in enfeebling magic and sword skill. It would turn us into better Saboteurs, and then we'd have a better-defined role.

Why when our buffs are single target only in the first place.. Self target only is a horrible idea. If you actually mean self target only and not single target only.

Each side has it's quips, but I think we all agree we'd like to see some reduction in our spell payload. If nothing else to free up a moment to rest, cure, or whatever else and not pull out our hair every time someone needs something while were mid-casting something else.