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[Nightfyre]

Umm the SS's of 6K aren't "as good" huh?

Ah yes, Abyssea... the one place where this spell is useful, because critical damage is inflated beyond all reason there. The problem is, by that logic it's a new spell for old content. If SE had released a retooled, slightly weaker/more expensive version of this spell in the Scars version update I doubt anyone would have complained, but Abyssea is not the focus of the game anymore.

Outside Abyssea, an older spell called Delta Thrust is far superior to Heavy Strike when fighting lower level/def mobs. It's slightly cheaper, it does about the same damage as Heavy Strike in these relatively low-def situations, and it has half the recast. The only reason you'd use Heavy Strike at all in this situation is because you'll already have it set for DA trait and can thus sneak in an extra Delta Thrust equivalent every ~30 seconds. The acc nerf will not have much impact here, and the heavy duty spells are still superior for per-cast damage if you're working with a strong refresh rate.

For higher level NMs, I've found myself turning to an old mainstay. Regurgitation is as efficient as ever, putting out ~500 damage per cast on Voidwatch NMs. Furthermore, I'm completely safe while doing this because I will never take hate and I will never be in range of any avoidable AoE. Heavy Strike, as you saw, is doing less than that on a 90 cap NM at 95, meaning it will perform worse vs 95 cap NMs whereas I'm likely to see the same results that I currently do with Regurgitation at 90 cap vs anything at 95 cap that doesn't resist water damage or has innate MDT. Regurgitation's recast is also lower.

So what I see here is a new spell with the potential to fill a niche - efficient physical spell vs high-level NMs - and it's been nerfed into the ground for those NMs because of how dire the need for acc is in that situation even without a penalty. What we have now is a new spell for old content instead of a new spell that will lead the way into new content... and really, why shouldn't we get new and effective spells? There will be more spells at 99, and some of them may replace old mainstays. I'm okay with that. But not once in this entire discussion, despite your repeated asking, have I sought for Heavy Strike to replace these old physical spells. I've sought for it to fill a niche they never had a place in to begin with.